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THE WHISPER 
ON THE STAIR 



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The feeling that she was not alone took possession of her 













THE WHISPER 
ON THE STAIR 

BY 

LYON MEARSON 


Frontispiece hy 
GEORGE W. GAGE t 

p’ 


NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


Copyright, 1924 

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY 



Printed in the United States of America 


To 

C. E. M. 


t 



A 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGB 


I. 

The Lady op the Bookshop . 




11 

II. 

Hidden Money .... 




19 

III. 

A Wraith in the Night . 




24 

IV. 

The Thing Begins 




29 

V. 

A Certain Vagueness of Memory 



S4 

VI. 

The Start of the Chase 




45 

VII. 

The Trail Gets Warmer 




51 

VIII. 

The Man without Hands 




60 

IX. 

Trailed !. 




68 

X. 

“Keep Away from that Girl** 




76 

XI. 

Dinner, and a Bit of Information 


83 

XII. 

The Mysterious Message 




93 

XIII. 

The Fight for the Books . 




102 

XIV. 

Green Eyes that Hypnotize 




120 

XV. 

Eddie Uses His Brain 




128 

XVI. 

Faced by Death .... 




133 

XVII. 

A Deserted Apartment . 




142 

XVIII. 

Fatal Orders. 




149 

XIX. 

Val Waxes Obstinate 




156 

XX. 

In the Shadow of the Grave 




164 

XXI. 

The Sight of Home . 




177 

XXII. 

The Warning. 




186 

XXIII. 

On Familiar Ground 




191 


vii 











viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIV. ‘To-night at the Old House** . . 195 

XXV. The Wings of the Night .... 202 

XXVI. The Whisper on the Stair . . . 214 

XXVII. The Unknown Presence . . .i . 225 

XXVIII. A Job of Burglary ...... 237 

XXIX. Prisoners!.. . 242 

XXX. The Books Again.250 

XXXI. The Secret in the Books . . . .258 

XXXII. Night Alarms.266 

XXXIII. The Search for the Girl .... 272 

XXXIV. When Graveyards Yawn . . .; . 277 

XXXV. The Chase. 286 

XXXVI. In the Secret Case.291 

XXXVII. Blood and Gold. 299 

XXXVIII. The End op the Trail ..... 309 











THE WHISPER 
ON THE STAIR 



THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


I 

THE LADY OF THE BOOKSHOP 

A GREAT mass of a man was Valentine Morley, a 
collection of sinew and firm flesh, a monolith who 
towered impressively above the average human to the 
extent of six feet two. Such a man was made for hand 
to hand combat, straining flesh against straining flesh, 
with muscles taut under the smooth skin; such a man 
was for work with his two hands, wresting a livelihood 
from a world that was his if he would but go forth 
and throttle it. That’s the kind of man Valentine 
Morley looked. 

But was he straining any flesh or tightening any 
muscles.? Was he engaged in the business of wresting 
a livelihood.? Not perceptibly. It is simply one of the 
ironies of the Fates, the stern gods who control the 
destinies of human kind. The only thing Val Morley 
was straining at the moment was his eyesight, over the 
fine print of an old book in the dim recesses of the 
second hand bookshop kept by old man Masterson on 
Fourth Avenue from time whereof the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary. 

11 


12 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


Valentine Morley did not have to strain a thing. 
Here were six feet two of manhood, endowed with 
youth, health, and a dangerous kind of good looks, 
even to the fascinating cleft in his firm chin—the kind 
of a man to conquer worlds, if he had to. He did not 
have to. An industrious and loving parent, now 
gathered to the bosom of his equally industrious an¬ 
cestors, had generously left him more millions than 
there were letters in his illustrious name. 

In a desultory fashion, now, Val was engaged in 
riding his old hobby. He was an amateur of books 
and bindings, and more of an expert than his careless 
attitude toward them might indicate. The old zest, 
however, was gone from the pursuit, much as it had 
departed from almost every walk of life for Val, since 
he had returned from his two years as a private in 
France. His body had returned, but there was some¬ 
thing of Val that would always be in France; perhaps 
it was his former naive enjoyment in the little things 
that make up a life and a world. 

Nothing nowadays seemed to matter much; his life 
for the past two years had been so filled with great 
things that he could not now get himself oriented to 
the irritating atoms of dady routine. His spirit 
craved much more than living the usual grind; he 
rather needed something to bring him out of himself. 
Bindings could not seem to do it, even the imitation 
he held in his hand, which was so good an imitation 
that many an expert would have been deceived. He 
turned irritably to the old man, Masterson. 

“How come you got stuck on this Bauzonnet, Mat?’^ 
he inquired. The old man removed his double eye¬ 
glasses and looked at him slowly. 


THE LADY OF THE BOOKSHOP 13 

“I didn’t,” he said at length. ‘‘It’s a copy—that’s 
all I paid for.” He turned back to his work, that of 
meticulously putting a small spot of book paste on 
the broken binding of a copy of The Duchess. 

“Good piece of work,” approved Val, secretly 
pleased with himself for not having been deceived in 
the binding. It was a good piece of work; a dark blue 
morocco affair, gold tooled, with a coat of arms in the 
center, inlaid with red morocco. It was a rather gor¬ 
geous piece of work. 

There was silence for a space, the crusty old book¬ 
seller seemingly intent on nothing but his work. He 
spoke at ilast, without turning; it was as if he were 
talking to the book in his hands, or to himself. 

“People are like that,” he said. “At least, the 
people who drift in here—and most people do get in 
here at some time or other.” 

“How do you mean.f^” asked Val, turning. 

“Why, imitations,” he replied, shortly, as if an¬ 
noyed that so plain a point should have been missed. 

“There are lots of them. Beautiful and expensive— 
on the outside. They look like the real thing. Face 
and expression and manner and clothes. Inside they 
are—copies. Just imitation, that’s all.” He turned 
definitely to his work, dismissing the subject. 

“Not referring to me, or anything like that ?” smiled 
Val, but there was no answer. He knew, of course, 
that there was no reference to him. He and Masterson 
had been friends ever since Val had left college. He 
understood the cranky old bookseller better than per¬ 
haps any one else in the world, with the possible ex¬ 
ception of Sam Peters, Masterson’s old clerk, who 


14 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


was at present engaged in ponderously moving the 
sidewalk book racks into the store, preparatory to 
closing up for the night. 

It was getting late, and one by one the street lights 
and the softer lights in office and residence windows 
flared into life, throwing the sidewalk in front into 
blacker relief. Masterson moved around creakily, 
lighting the antiquated gas jets in his store. He had 
never had electric lights installed—the ramshackle old 
building was not wired for electricity, and his store 
seldom was open in the evening. 

A shadow halted at the door for a moment, hesi¬ 
tated, descended the steps and came in. Val looked 
up from his book. Even in the uncertain light he 
could see that there was a presence there—something 
out of the ordinary—a girl to be remembered. The 
mark of breeding was on her troubled face and on the 
garments she wore. 

Her features were small and regular, with the 
flnest, wispiest tendrils of hair escaping from under 
her toque that you ever saw. Her finely modeled chin 
had a coquettishly determined cast to it that bespoke 
—along with the nose that barely hinted at being re¬ 
trousse—a temper that was not always kept under 
the firmest control. The big, lustrous eyes were shaded 
by miraculously long, silky lashes that cast a shadow 
over dark eyes, pools at midnight under the moon. 
She was below medium height, with hands and feet that 
were almost ridiculously small to be used for the pur¬ 
pose of supporting a human body, and when she spoke 
the dimples in her fine cheeks came and went ravish- 
ingly. All this Val noted from his corner, approv¬ 
ingly. He shut the book. 

He noticed her clothes, too. Quiet and in good 


THE LADY OF THE BOOKSHOP 


15 


taste, with the simple lines that betoken numerous dol¬ 
lars spent with modistes. She was expensively dressed, 
as even VaPs superlatively male eyes could discern at 
a glance. In each hand she held a bundle of books 
bound by a strap such as school children use for their 
school books, ten or a dozen in each bundle. Quite a 
heavy burden for so slight a girl, and he noted that 
she put them down with relief. 

All this he noted before old Masterson looked up— 
she was standing in front of him at the desk. She 
flashed a quick glance at Val in his corner, and back at 
Masterson. Val could see that she was nervous and ill 
at ease. There was agitation in her manner and a 
look in her eyes that he could hardly classify—could 
it have been fear.? It seemed to him uncommonly like 
it, in that instant’s glance at him. He had managed 
to see into her eyes then, before they were again 
shaded by her wonderful fringed lashes. 

“Do—do you buy books here.?” she asked Master- 
son. Her voice seemed cold and calm enough to Val. 
Perhaps it was imagination on his part. 

“Why, occasionally, my child,” said Masterson, 
creaking to his feet. 

“I have some here——” she motioned to her erst¬ 
while burden with an inclusive sweep of her small 
gloved hand. 

“Well, I don’t think I care for any, to-day,” he 
said, and added kindly, “You see, I have more books 
now than I like to carry, so I’m not buying for a 
while.” 

She showed her disappointment. 

“But these are very good books, sir,” she protested. 
“I’m sure you’ll like them, if you’ll only look at them. 
I was told that you are always in the market-” 




16 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Not now, my child,’’ he interrupted, turning again 
to his work, not unkindly, but definitely* She stood 
there, looking at him almost helplessly. 

“If you would only give me—say, ten dollars for 
them-” she faltered. 

“Impossible,” he said, without looking. “I never 
pay ten dollars for books—and besides, I don’t need 
them. I have too many as it is. No doubt they are 
worth it.” He went on pasting. 

“Won’t you give me something for them,” she 
pleaded, and there was agitation in her tone. 

“Sam I” called Masterson to his assistant, still with¬ 
out looking up. “See how much money is in the cash 
register.” 

“Two dollars and thirteen cents, Mr. Masterson,” 
replied Peters, after a glance, “You made a deposit 
to-day.” 

He looked at the young woman inquiringly. 

*‘Two dollars and thirteen cents,” she murmured, 
repeating it after him monotonously. 

“If that will be of any use to you—” he deprecated. 

“Yes, I’ll take it,” she said swiftly. The money was 
passed over in silence and she went out immediately, 
leaving the books behind her. The old man turned 
again to his work. Val Morley sauntered out from his 
corner. 

“Mat,” he said, “you’re an abominable old profiteer, 
and you’ll come to no good end.” There was no an¬ 
swer. It was as if the bookseller had not even heard. 

“I hope, when you die and go to Purgatory, as you 
surely will,” continued the young man, “that you’ll be 
condemned to read Harold Bell Wright and Ouida 
through all eternity, world without end, and have 



THE LADY OF THE BOOKSHOP 17 

nothing to smoke but cubeb cigarettes and nothing to 
drink but celery tonic.’^ 

“My boy,’’ answered the bookseller, “Wright amuses 
me and Ouida still thrills me and cubeb cigarettes are 
good for a cold. As for celery tonic, you’ll be glad 
of even that to quench your thirst, where you’re go¬ 
ing. You didn’t suppose I make my living by giving 
people as much money for their books as they are 
worth, did you? Anyway, I really didn’t want any 
more books, and these are probably not worth more. 
Bemember what I told you about imitations.” 

“This girl’s no imitation,” flashed back the young 
man. “She’s the real thing.” 

“And yet—she wants two dollars and thirteen cents 
badly enough to give up two packages of books for 
them—^with all those expensive clothes on her back.” 

“Now that you mention her back, it was adorable, 
wasn’t it? By jingo, that was rather queer, wasn’t 
it?” Val murmured, more to himself than to his friend, 
the bookseller. 

He pondered this, for awhile. It interested him, and 
anything that interested him these days was distinctly 
worth thinking about. It isn’t good to be jaded with 
life at thirty; life should still have a sparkle; a bubble. 
Here was a beautiful girl, really beautiful, with breed¬ 
ing, position and money marked in plain signs all over 
her, who seemed to need a couple of dollars badly 
enough to agitate her. Surely it was fear^—or des¬ 
peration—^he had glimpsed in her eyes in that fleeting 
glance when their gazes crossed. Here was mys¬ 
tery, then . . . and a beautiful girl ... a beautiful 
girl. . . . 

“Listen, Shylock,” he said suddenly to Masterson., 


18 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Since you’re not so anxious about those books, any¬ 
way, I’ll give you a hundred per cent profit.” He 
took out a five dollar bill. “This for the books—as 
is.” It had suddenly occurred to him that he might 
find a clue to the girl’s identity in the books. A book¬ 
plate, perhaps. Or an inscription. 

“Nonsense. You’re an optimist, my son, the old 
man answered quietly. “I’ll make much more than 
that on these books-—without looking.” 

“Then I’ll give you five dollars for one of the pack¬ 
ages—ten dollars,” he tempted, as he saw denial in the 
eyes of the bookseller. “It’s a profit—clean velvet— 
without your even having to open the strap.” 

Masterson hesitated for a moment. The young man 
was right ... he was a bookseller, and it was his 
business to make a profit. Val saw victory in his eyes. 

“Is it a deal?” he asked. 

“You’ve bought that bundle of books,” answered 
Masterson, pointing to one of them, containing ten or 
eleven books. “Show me ten dollars.” 

Money was passed and the deal consummated. 

“Never mind wrapping them up,” said Val. “I’ll 
just throw them into the car.” His machine was at 
the door, a flying roadster of an expensive and recent 
make. 


n 


HIDDEN MONEY 

Vae’s apartment was in one of the big, expensive, 
gold plated rabbit warrens which have recently sprung 
up on Fifth Avenue in the early seventies, opposite 
Central Park. Cooperative apartment houses, they 
are called. You pay enough money for a fair sized 
country estate for the privilege of occupying an apart¬ 
ment for which you have to pay, in addition, a monthly 
rental that sounds more like a telephone number than 
a rental amount. 

In this apartment was to be found Chong Low, a 
wizard Chinese cook of bland features and wonderful 
powers—powers that Savarin himself would not have 
despised. Here also was to be found Eddie Hughes, 
VaPs man, who could handle a gun as well as a tailor’s 
iron, and was equally willing to handle either for his 
employer. He was a small chap with muscles of chilled 
steel and the lithe speed of a mountain lion. He 
smoked when he desired, and he drank, in moderation 
when he wished, indulging in the former through the 
simple expedient of taking what smoking material he 
wished out of the humidors of his employer—and in 
the latter, similarly, from out the bounty provided 
in the cellarettes of his employer. Of all of which 
Val was cognizant; he had given Eddie permission to 
do this, saying that he would rather have him take 
19 


20 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


these things with his permission than steal them with¬ 
out his permission. 

“Tell Chong I’ll eat at seven-thirty—alone,” di¬ 
rected Val. Eddie Hughes touched a match to the 
dried twigs in the huge living room fireplace, and 
turned to go. It was early fall and the ruddy glow of 
the fire, which leaped up instantaneously in the fire¬ 
place, was pleasant and comfortable, even in competi¬ 
tion with the ample steam sent up from below. 

Val seated himself in the big, overs tuff ed chair that 
faced the flames and proceeded to inspect his bargain. 
He loosened the strap that bound the books, and they 
toppled over in a little heap at his feet. 

A cursory examination showed Val nothing remark¬ 
able about the books. The bindings were not such as 
to interest him, and the books themselves were mostly 
of a mid-Victorian period, with the green silk covers 
that were such an obsession during that time. There 
were three or four Dickens, a bit of Thackeray, one 
Matthew Arnold, and so on. 

There was not a name plate in any of the books, 
though he found a bit of comment here and there, 
written marginally in a fine, childish hand. The last 
book he picked up was a King James bible. Here he 
had better luck. On the fly leaf was the inscription 

This Holy Bible is the Property 
of 

Jessica Pomeroy 

in the same fine, round hand as the marginal notes. 

“Jessica . . .” he mused before his fire. “Jessica . . .” 
he repeated to himself. “A name that connotes some¬ 
thing—green fields and all that sort of thing, eh?” 


HIDDEN MONEY 


21 


The name was connoting more to him at the moment— 
dimples, flushed velvety cheeks, a skin you love to 
touch, it fits well around the neck, alone at last, till 
death do you part, Mrs. Valentine Morley- 

“Snap out of it!” he commanded himself suddenly, 
smiling into the fire. “Life isn’t like that, you old 
fool. You don’t see a girl for one minute one day 
and marry her the next. Things don’t go as speedily 
as all that. And yet, those eyelashes! Like deep 
fringes over a midnight pool-” 

“Dinner’s ready, sir,” announced Eddie. 

In solitary state he made his way into the dining 
room and seated himself at the table. He attacked 

his grapefruit. Jessica- There was something 

about the name he liked instinctively. Even if the 

name had not been associated with- but then, he 

found he could no longer dissociate the name from 
the girl in the book shop. 

“Eddie,” he said to his man, “beautiful woman is 
Nature’s noblest work, eh?” 

“Yes, sir. So I have been led to believe, sir.” 

“Man is a lonely animal, without woman, isn’t he?” 

“Yes, sir; so I have been informed, sir,” replied the 
impassive Eddie, removing the grapefruit. 

“You have—er—never engaged in—er—^matrimony, 
Eddie?” 

“No, sir; I think not, sir.” 

“Very good, Eddie,” replied his employer. 

Why should such a girl want two dollars and thir¬ 
teen cents? Val gave it up. And yet, if she was in 
trouble—and anybody who needed two thirteen must 
be in trouble, Val conceived that it was up to him to 
give her a lift out of it. Of course, he said to him¬ 
self, he would go out of his way to help everybody who 






22 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


was in trouble, regardless of how beautiful she was, 
but—her hair was sort of copper, you know, burnished 
copper like the old copper pots Grandma Morley used 
to have. And there had seemed to be lots of it, coils 
and masses and waves, tumbled and heaped and- 

‘Will you have your coffee here, sir?’^ asked Eddie. 

“Er—yes, surely.” 

To-morrow he would go ahunting Jessica Pomeroy 
—surely, she should not be so hard to find. It was not 
an ordinary name. She wouldn’t have that, of course. 
He could go no further into the matter of the books 
to-night, owing to an appointment for the evening. 

It was after one o’clock when he returned, admitted 
by the apparently sleepless Eddie. 

“Go to bed, Eddie,” he said. “Nothing to do tiH 
to-morrow.” 

“Very good, sir,” replied Eddie, going to his room. 

The little pile of books on the floor of the living 
room reminded him of the riddle of Jessica Pomeroy. 
Perhaps there was something in them he had over¬ 
looked—an address somewhere, perhaps, or . . . He 
paused in hesitation for a moment. 

On an impulse, he gathered up the books and took 
them to his bedroom with him, to look them over as 
he lay in bed. 

By the light of his bedside lamp he went over each of 
the books carefully. Nothing. No trace of the iden¬ 
tity of the girl with copper hair. He stifled a yawn 
politely, in deference to the fact that he was, in a 
way, communicating with a girl—the first one who had 
interested him since he had returned from France. 
The last book he picked up was the bible, 

“Jessica Pomeroy,” he recited, looking at the school- 



HroDEN MONEY 


23 


girl hand. “I wonder . . he went off into an ab¬ 
stracted lapse. At the head of his table, perhaps, the 
glint of the shaded lights playing on that hair, the 
mouth and eyes smiling at him . . . absentmindedly, 
he thumbed the pages. A glint of yellow and green 
caught his eye in the pages. 

Instantly he was wide awake, interested, turning the 
pages one by one to find the one so decorated as to 
stand out from the others. He found the page finally, 
drawing out from between pages one hundred and 
ninety nine and two hundred a yellow and green paper, 
which he examined with interest, giving vent to a long, 
low whistle of astonishment. 

There came a knock on his door, and he started. 

“Did you call, sir?” came the voice of Eddie. 

“No, go to bed,” he answered, and he heard the pat¬ 
ter of retreating footsteps. He turned his attention 
again to the slip of paper in his hand. 

It was a United States Treasury note for ten thou¬ 
sand dollars. 


in 


A WRAITH IN THE NIGHT 

‘‘Now why,” quoth Val, “should this be thus?” He 
addressed the walls of his comfortable bedroom and 
paused for reply. 

“You don’t know, is that it?” he asked again. 
“Well, that makes it unanimous. I ask you,” he re¬ 
marked to himself, “why should the best looking girl 
in all the world sell a ten thousand dollar bill for the 
sum of two dollars and thirteen (count ’em) cents?” 
He paused again for reply. There was none. 

“Now we just simply have got to find that girl. We 
have business with her. Those eyes ...” 

It was one of the most singular things he had ever 
known, he reflected. Of course, the girl had no idea 
the money was in the book—yet why was it there and 
who had put it there? Evidently she needed money 
badly. Well, here it was; a large stack of it. And 
he, Val, had but to search her out and place it in her 
hand . . . that hand, he had noticed it . . . white 
and small and . . . that is, place it in her hand, at 
the same time placing himself on a basis of intimacy 
with her by the mere fact of his having returned all 
that money to her. 

Although ten thousand dollars was no great sum 
of money to Valentine Morley, still he could appre¬ 
ciate the fact that, if you needed it, it was a tremen- 
24 


A WRAITH IN THE NIGHT 


25 


dous item. He smiled gratefully—it was a trick of the 
Fates, he decided. Had it not been for that promise 
of the government to pay anybody who held it ten 
thousand dollars, he would hardly have been able to 
dig up a sufficient reason for calling on the girl, always 
supposing he was fortunate enough to be able to 
locate her. 

Here was his reason and his excuse, thrust right into 
his hands by the gods themselves. Could anything be 
more simple? Could anything have happened more 
fortuitously ? 

“It could not,’^ he decided. “And now to see if 
there are any more.” 

A careful search, however, failed to reveal anything 
else. For a long time he lay there, reviewing the 
events of the day, and making a plan of campaign. It 
ought not to be hard to round up all the Pomeroys 
in New York. 

And then there was always old Mat Masterson, the 
bookseller. He had a bundle of books from the same 
source—perhaps they held some indication of the erst¬ 
while owner. He would go there the first thing in the 
morning and look them over. That settled, he ex¬ 
tinguished his lamp and sleepily settled himself for 
slumber. A shaft of yellow moonlight struck through 
the darkness into his room, touching everything in its 
strait-ruled path with a wan and sickly gold, deepen¬ 
ing the shadows in the corners and under the furniture. 
He closed his eyes and slept. 

His sleep was troubled by dreams, peopled with the 
ghosts conjured up out of the cobwebs of his imag¬ 
ination. A bloodcurdling, ghostly dance was done 
around his bed by Eddie Hughes, but not the Eddie 
Hughes of New York—^it was Eddie Hughes as he had 


26 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


known him in France where they had fought side by 
side. An Eddie Hughes in tin helmet, waving a 
Springfield with a bloody bayonet attached, the crim¬ 
son stream pouring from vicious cuts in his face and 
body, his eyes sightless, blinded hideously by the mus¬ 
tard gas. Val tried to arise in his dream and found 
he could not—it was as though his limbs no longer 
refused to obey the commands of his brain. There 
seemed to be no feeling in them. He felt legless and 
armless. 

Eddie Hughes gave way, finally, to a glorious girl 
with copper hair, arising out of a pile of books in 
front of his bed. She advanced to him and placed a 
cool hand on his brow . . . she smiled. He tried to 
rise. He could not. She walked back to the books, 
gliding in an unreal, unnatural fashion and as he 
looked he saw that it was not the girl at all. 

It was a man, a large man, with his back turned. 
He was bent among the books, clumsily putting them 
into a pile. The moonlight, which had been absent for 
a few moments, it seemed to Val, stabbed through the 
gloom of the chamber again, striking fair upon the 
person of Val’s dream and as Val looked he felt him¬ 
self, even in his dream, turning cold all over, the goose- 
flesh pricking up over his body and the blood seeming 
to turn to ice in his veins. 

The reason his dream-visitor was having trouble with 
the books was because—^Val tried to arise and could 
not!—because he had no hands. 

Where his hands should have been were two form¬ 
less, pale white stumps. 

Val knew he was dreaming, the way you sometimes 
do know even during the course of a dream, yet for 
some reason or other, he could hardly say why, he 


A WRAITH IN THE NIGHT 


2T 


was stricken with a terror that had its inception in 
nothing of this earth. The sight of that great hulk of 
an apparition stooping in the weak moonlight, grop¬ 
ing among the books on the floor with those two 
ghastly stumps affected him as nothing this side of 
France had ever gripped him. He tried to shout and 
could emit no word. His tongue was glued to the 
roof of his mouth. He could not feel his limbs—^he 
had no command over them—it was as if he were a 
disembodied spirit. 

Then he slept again, dreamlessly and heavily. 

When he awoke the sun was high and the air in the 
room seemed stifling. He had a bad taste in his 
mouth, which shouldn’t have been there as he had be¬ 
haved himself meticulously the night before, and there 
was a suggestion of headache. There was a peculiar 
smell in the air—^he could scarcely classify it. It was 
something of the hospital. He remembered his dream 
and smiled. 

The door opened and Eddie, who had heard him 
creaking out of bed, entered. 

^‘Good morning, sir,” he said, and stopped to sniff 
the air. 

“Good morning, Eddie. Do you smell it too.” 

“Yes sir. It’s chloroform, sir,” replied Eddie. “Did 
you leave the airshaft window in the living room open, 
sir.?” 

“No, why.?” 

“I found it open this morning, sir,” replied Eddie 
impassively. 

“That’s strange,” reflected Val. ^‘And chloro¬ 
form ...” He leaped up suddenly. ^‘Why, there 
was somebody here then, Eddie. That was no dream!” 

“No sir. It was no dream, sir.” 


28 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Why, I must have been chloroformed—thaPs why 

I feel like this. And--” he stared with wide open 

eyes at the spot where the books had lain* 

They were gone* 




IV 


THE THING BEGINS 

A QUICK search revealed the fact that nothing else 
had been taken by the ghostly marauder. Even the 
ten thousand dollar bill had been left on the bedside 
table where Val had dropped it after a due examina¬ 
tion the night before. Perhaps the burglar had not 
seen the bill—he had worked with a flashlight, prob¬ 
ably, or perhaps no light at all. 

They found the marks of a jimmy on the catch of 
the airshaft window—a living room window only 
about twelve feet above the street and easy of access 
to an active man—or easier if there were two men. 

By the time the search was completed Val’s head¬ 
ache had gone. His eye was brighter than it had been 
for many a day. He was interested. Life was be¬ 
ginning to pick up again—there were things happen¬ 
ing. At breakfast he conducted one of his usual one^ 
sided conversations with his man. 

“Eddie,he queried, “copper colored hair is beau¬ 
tiful, isn^t it?’^ 

“For them as likes copper colored hair, sir.” 

“When you meet the best looking girl in all the 
world and points adjacent, Eddie, and she carries mys¬ 
tery written all over her—^with an appearance of 
wealth which she belies by accepting two dollars and 
thirteen cents for two dozen books, and when you take 
29 


30 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


one of those bundles of books home and find that her 
name is, probably, Jessica Pomeroy, and that there 
is a ten thousand dollar bill in one of those books 
which, of course, it will be up to your respected*—so to 
speak—employer to return if he can find the girl, thus 
making it the basis for a firm and lasting—er—friend¬ 
ship, and lastly, when some visitor oozes in during the 
wee sma’ hours, perfumes your palpitating bean with 
chloroform and other pleasing odors, and abstracts 
aforesaid books, would you say that Life was begin¬ 
ning to be worth living once more?’^ 

“Yes, sir. Another cup of coffee, sir.^” replied 
Eddie, brightly. 

“Yes. And Eddie, the name of Jessica Pomeroy is 
beautiful, isn’t it.?” 

“Yes, sir. A very tasteful name for a young female 
person, if I may say so, sir,” came back Eddie. Val 
looked at him thoughtfully, speculatively. 

“Have you ever been in love, Eddie.?” he asked at 
length. 

“No, sir. The reason I look as I do, sir, is because 
I never did quite get all that gas out of my system— 
you know, that time when we took Neuve Ste. Jean. 

I- 

“Old vaudeville stuff, Eddie. What do you know 
of the more delicate passions anyway. I want you to 
drive for me this morning—order the car, will you. 
I’ll be starting right after breakfast.” 

Val attacked another slice of toast with great gusto. 
Things were beginning to look up—^midnight attacks, 
beautiful girls, ten thousand dollar bills, mystery, love, 
everything. Perhaps life was not such a dull prop¬ 
osition after all. Who knows, maybe to-day he would 
be lucky enough to have some one make an attack on 



THE THING BEGINS 


31 


his life—or perhaps he would rescue Jessica Pomeroy 
from some horrible danger that threatened her, or 
perhaps . . . 

He smiled and finished his breakfast. As long as 
there was a bit of beauty and a bit of fighting left 
in the world, he would recon-sider his determination to 
leave this old planet flat on its back and find another 
where things were livelier. And this began to look 
promising, too. Well, the first think to do was to 
locate Jessica Pomeroy. 

The telephone book was not of much assistance. 
There was half a column of the name, and they ranged 
from authors to zither experts, but he found nothing 
that conjured up the name of Jessica for him. Some 
of them lived in the Bronx. That let them out, of 
course, because Jessica would not live in the Bronx. 
There were some in Brooklyn—they were dismissed for 
the same reason. 

“Suppose I’ll have to visit them all,” sighed Val. He 
would visit every Pomeroy in the United States, if 
necessary. He would- 

“The car is here, sir,” announced Eddie. 

“All right, Eddie. Coming.” 

He lighted a cigarette as he made his way out, hum¬ 
ming a gay little tune meanwhile. It was all about love 
and springtime, and all that sort of thing, and con¬ 
tained a reference to blue eyes and shining skies and 
moon and June and spoon and croon and all the 
world’s in tune. For the first time in many days Val 
was, in a manner of speaking, bubbling inside. 

His limousine, a French car, with Eddie sedately 
and properly at the wheel, stood at the curb. 

“To Masterson’s book shop, on Fourth Avenue, 
Eddie,” he commanded. 



32 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Yes, sir/’ 

The car, galvanized into sudden and vibrant life be¬ 
neath him, slid out into the smooth roadway and 
hummed over the asphalt on its way downtown. Val 
gave himself up to pleasant meditations. Possibly she 
was already at the bookshop, having in some mirac¬ 
ulous way discovered the loss of the money; maybe 
she was there with other books. 

Surely one of the volumes in Mat’s possession would 
have her name and address. Of course, her name was 
Jessica Pomeroy—of that he was certain, though he 
was willing to admit freely that his grounds for belief 
in this were not impregnable. Yet, did not the name 
Jessica fit her so well that you might think that he, 
Val, had personally chosen it for her? It didl Well, 
then. 

He lighted another cigarette. Just like a novel, he 
commented. It seemed to be a case of cherchez la 
femme, and he intended cherching the femme all over 
the bally town until he had her located. As to finding 
her, that ought not to be so hard. He was awakened 
from his reverie by the stopping of the car in front o£ 
Masterson’s bookshop. 

“Wait, Eddie,” he threw back, jumping out and 
making his way to the store. 

^‘Funny,” he commented to himself. “First time I 
ever knew Mat to be late.” The window shades were 
drawn down close to the bottom, shutting out all out¬ 
side view, just as Mat left them every night. 

A closer look convinced him, however, that the store 
was not closed. A streak of yellow gaslight showed 
at one end of the window, where the shade did not quite 
fit to the exact end of the glass. And now a shadow 
crossed the shade. 


THE THING BEGINS 


35 


Val descended the half a dozen steps that led to the 
store and turned the handle. It opened easily, and hei 
let himself into the room—^into the center of a group 
of five or six people, including two policemen. 

‘‘Hello, what’s up?” he asked, looking around for 
the bookseller. He did not see him, hut a personage of 
apparent importance stepped forward. They in¬ 
spected each other closely, slowly. 

“You’re Mr. Valentine Morley,” said the other. 

Val looked at his feet. They were of a good, gen¬ 
erous size. They were capable of supporting his great 
bulk in comfort, if not in style. From the official’s 
feet he looked up again to his face. 

“I am, officer,” he replied. “Anything wrong here?” 

The officer nodded his head. “Decidedly,” he re¬ 
plied, tersely. “I am Detective Sergeant Connolly,” 
he stated, showing a gold badge as he spoke. Val 
nodded in acknowledgment, waiting. 

“Matthew Masterson is dead,” said the sergeant. 

“Mat Masterson—^is—dead!” repeated Val mechan¬ 
ically. He did not comprehend fully at first, it was 
too sudden. “Mat Masterson—is dead!” he repeated 
again, and Sergeant ConnoUy nodded his head briefly. 
There was a catch in Val’s voice as he repeated the 
second time—^he had loved the lonely old man. And 
now he was gone. It was a pity. 

“How-” he commenced. 

“He was murdered last night,” said Sergeant Con¬ 
nolly drily 



V 


A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 

Inured as Val was to death in all its varied forms, 
yet there was something about this bald announce¬ 
ment that seemed to catch him in the throat; it was 
as if an icy hand had suddenly clutched him, a hand 
reaching out of nowhere, a hand that could drag him 
from the here into the hereafter. 

He had seen men die by his side; for weeks he had 
looked upon the face of death in the front line trenches. 
But death was in its proper environment there. One 
could die in the trenches—that’s what one was there 
for. It was a fitting culmination to a man’s work in 
the trenches. 

But there was something appallingly different about 
a man’s being picked out of the heart of a peaceful 
occupation in his own store, surrounded by his own 
books, his own environment. And yesterday, he re¬ 
membered, he had joked about death with the old man. 
It was not so much that the man died—we all must 
die—he reflected,—as it was the fact that he had died 
so without warning, so disconcertingly soon. To joke 
about death one day and to be dead the next— 
there was an uncanny coincidence about it that Val did 
not fancy, somehow. 

The voice of the sergeant broke in on his medita¬ 
tions. 

‘T understand you were one of the last to see him 
34 


A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 35 


last night, before he closed for the night,’’ remarked 
Sergeant Connolly. 

“I guess I was,” Val nodded. “Tell me, how-” 

he looked his question. 

The plain clothes man told him briefly all that was 
known about the matter, which was not much. When 
Sam Peters, Masterson’s clerk and assistant opened 
the store this morning he found that the door was not 
locked, as usual. Upon entering, he found the body 
of poor old Masterson sprawled across his desk, his 
head crushed in, as by some heavy, blunt instrument. 
That was all, except that in his hand was clutched, 
so tightly that it was still there and could not readily 
be removed, a strap such as children use to keep their 
school books together. Did Mr. Morley happen to 
remember such a strap. 

Mr. Morley did. He remembered instantly. There 
was the girl, of course, and the books she had brought. 
Two bundles—each one tied with such a strap. 

He looked at his questioner speculatively. 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “There was a lady here last 
night—brought in some books bound in such a strap 
—two bundles, to be exact. I bought one of the 
bundles ‘as is’ from Masterson, and he kept the other.” 

“Exactly,” nodded the sergeant. He knew all this, 
of course, from Peters. “And the books you bought— 
was there some clue as to the identity of the owner?” 

Val shook his head promptly. “No, there was not,” 
he stated emphatically. 

“You won’t mind if we look them over?” suggested 
the sergeant. 

“If you can locate them, why- 

“How do you mean?” asked the plainclothes man, 
politely. 



36 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘They were stolen from me last night,” admitted 
Val. “But the bundle that was left here- 

“That was taken, too,” said the sergeant. 

VaPs eyes clouded for an instant. But then, of 
course, they would be, he decided. Undoubtedly the 
thief, whoever he was, knew that Masterson had re¬ 
tained half of the books. Probably he had refused to 
give them up without a struggle. He hardly supposed 
that they really intended to kill the old man when 
plainly the only purpose or motive in the whole affair 
seemed to be, for some inexplicable reason, to get back 
the books. 

“Nothing else in the place was touched,’ announced 
the detective, noting, in some measure, what was go¬ 
ing on in Val’s mind. 

“Now, if we could get hold of the woman in the 
case-he began. 

“What do you mean, ‘the woman in the case’.?” in¬ 
quired Val, although he knew well enough what was 
meant. He was sparring for time. It took no very 
acute mind to see the trend in which the investigation 
was to go—at any rate, at present. The woman was 
all they had to tie up to, as things stood now. If they 
could get hold of her, though she was innocent—as 
Val hastened to admit to himself—they could perhaps 
get some information as to what was going on, as to 
what motivated the events of the last two days, and— 
perhaps—the slayer himself. But Val had seen from 
the first instant of his entry here that the woman’s 
name must be kept out of it. Innocent or not, it 
would be a distinctly unpleasant and unwholesome 
position for a girl with copper burnished hair and 
eyes like twin mountain pools in the moonlight, or was 




A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 37 


it twin moons in a midnight pool, or—well, whatever 
it was, he would have to go easy on it and stall. 

To those who did not understand the character of 
Valentine Morley it might appear curious that a mo¬ 
mentary glimpse of a passable appearing girl in the half 
light of a bookshop should so upset his notions of right 
and wrong; that the remembrance of a girl he had seen 
for hardly more than an instant should have so taken 
possession of him. And yet, as Val remarked to him¬ 
self, that chap Browning said something of the kind 
when he said that Love, which can come by a turn of 
the head, or a glance out of the eye, or a wisp of hair 
momentarily curling on the nape of a neck, can go by 
just these things—instantaneously, as it came. And 
Val could admit to himself freely and without reserva¬ 
tion that this woman, in the brief moment of his vision¬ 
ing of her, had taken greater hold on him than any 
woman he had ever met. 

That being the case, he intended to be very careful 
of what he said. Sam Peters, he knew, had hardly 
glanced at her when she was here last night. He had 
been busy dragging in the counter book stalls. His 
eyesight, too, was not what it was in his youth. He 
would hardly be able to give a satisfactory description 
of the girl—probably he had already given what de¬ 
scription he could. Probably- 

^‘Now, if you could give us an accurate description 

of the woman, Mr. Morley, we might-suggested 

the sergeant tentatively. He paused and gazed at Val 
significantly. 

‘‘Eh, of course, of course,’’ replied that worthy, 
brought up short out of his reverie. “Anything I can 
do, why, just rely on me.” 




38 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘To be sure,” smiled the detective sergeant. “It^s 
the duty of all good citizens-” 

“To come to the aid of the party, Mr. Connolly,” 
replied Val. “Well, what is it I can do.?^” 

“Why, a description of the woman—^her appear¬ 
ance, clothes, and all that.” 

“Yes, of course,” came back Val. “She was, I think, 
about medium height—you understand, of course, I 
paid very little attention to her, so my description 
will, at best, be very vague.” 

“Surely,” acquiesced Connolly. “But there will be 
some particular details you can remember, if you try 
really hard. The color of her clothes perhaps, her 
hair and eyes, what kind of clothes she wore.” 

“Naturally,” said Val. “She wore—er—a—er—a 
dress, I think, of some sort of feminine material reach¬ 
ing to somewhere between her—er—ankles and her— 
er—ahem!—her- 

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the sergeant a bit im¬ 
patiently, “they all wear ^em between the ankle and 
the ahem these days, most of them more so—but what 
kind of a dress was it, and what color.?” 

“Why, it was an—a—er—ordinary dress, don’t you 
know—not the kind of dress at all that one de¬ 
scribes, sergeant—^if you know what I mean? The 
color? Dashed if I can just remember—think it was 
a sort of purple, or was it blue?” He paused in the 
struggle to remember. “Come to think of it, it might 
—er—have been—er—reddish yellow, or maybe there 
was a touch of green—well, there was some color in 
it, sergeant. You can rely on that—^but she’ll prob¬ 
ably have changed her outfit, anyway, won’t she? Her 
hat—^why, she sort of wore it on her head, if I re¬ 
member correctly, a little to one side—er—or maybe 



A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 39 


not so much, if you know what I mean, Mr. Connolly? 
I—er—^mean it was just a common sort of hat of some 
color or other—didn’t pay much attention to it.” 

“Er, thank you, Mr. Morley,” put in Connolly drily. 
“That’s very helpful, so far. Now, about her per¬ 
sonal appearance, why- 

“Why, of course, of course,” Val hastened to inter¬ 
pose. “Her personal appearance, to be sure.” What 
volumes Val could have written concerning the lady’s 
personal appearance! What odes to the particular 
shade of that copper burnished hair! What sonnets 
to the dainty sweep of those eyelashes! W^hat short 
stories having to do with the contour of her nose! He 
gave the sergeant her personal description with barely 
checked enthusiasm. 

“About—er—medium height, sergeant, I think, or 
perhaps a little shorter—ahem, or was it a little 
taller?” He paused while he discussed this with him¬ 
self. “Er—well, it’s of no consequence. That wouldn’t 
distinguish her—^most women are about medium height 
or a little taller or a little shorter, anyway. Her 
eyes were of some color or other, I could not see them 
in this semi-darkness, anyway, and the same for her 
hair. To tell you the truth, sergeant, now that I 
come to describe her I find I hardly noticed her at all. 
People are like that, aren’t they?” he inquired blandly. 

“Like what?” asked the sergeant irritably. 

“I mean, like I am—er—go through life, you know, 
with their eyes shut, hardly knowing what goes on 
around them. You know, you meet and talk to people 
every day that you couldn’t for the life of you de¬ 
scribe, although you may know them well, so how 
can you expect a man to describe a woman he had no 
cause to notice”—the Lord have mercy on your soul, 



‘ 40 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

Valentine Morley!—^‘and only saw for a moment or 
two? What was the name of this bird—a magician, I 
think, who used to walk full-speed in front of crowded 
shop windows and then was able to describe accurately 
every little thing in—— 

“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted the officer. “You’ve 
been about as helpful as Peters, here,” he waved to the 
old man, 

“Sorry, Fm sure, officer,” replied Val, with a sin¬ 
cere show of regret, “Anything I can do, of course—' 
why—— 

“Thanks, Mr. Morley,” said Connolly. “Is there 
anything you want to say to Mr. Morley, coroner.?” 
he asked, turning to another member of the group. 

^‘Not at this moment, sergeant,” replied the cor¬ 
oner. little later, perhaps. Don’t go away yet, 
Mr. Morley.” 

Val nodded. “All right. Any objection to my talk¬ 
ing to Mr. Peters,” he nodded in the direction of the 
bookseller’s old clerk. “I am interested in the dis¬ 
position of this store, naturally, and- 

“No objection at all,” interposed both the coroner 
and Connolly. “Go right ahead.” They dismissed 
him temporarily with a nod and continued their con¬ 
sultation in a little group, finally going into the back 
room presumably for another inspection of the body, 
which had been laid out there after the coroner had 
made his examination. Val sat down next to Sam 
Peters. The old clerk raised his white head, his eyes 
red with weeping. 

“Oh, Mr. Morley I” he whispered. “What a hor¬ 
rible thing- 

“There, there, Sam,” soothed Val. “Don’t talk 
about it. I know how you feel.” 






A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 41 

‘‘He was like a brother to me, Mr. Morlej,” sai(i 
Peters, “I have been with him for twenty-five years, 

and to find him as I did this morning-his voice 

quavered and broke. Val clapped him on the shoulder 
gently. 

“I know, Sam, I know. I loved the old man, my¬ 
self. What are you going to do now?’^ he asked. 

“Me?” asked Peters. “I don’t know—don’t care 
much, now. I wouldn’t want to work for anybody 
else now, and yet-” 

“Didn’t Mat have a sister somewhere?” asked 
Morley. 

“Yes, his only relative. Lives out of town. She 
has been telegraphed for. She’ll probably be here to¬ 
day. What a homecoming!” They were silent for a 
brief space. 

To Val the most pitiable object of it all was old 
Peters, whose life was wound around that of Master- 
son’s and the old bookshop. A man absolutely with¬ 
out friends, presumably, and whose only interest in 
life was his work here among these books which had 
been his friends and companions since his youth. He 
was old now—there was little more left in life for him 
■—and now that little was to be ruthlessly taken away. 

“I suppose she’ll sell the old shop,^’ he put in, ten¬ 
tatively. 

“I suppose so,” sighed the old man. 

“And then-” 

“And then-the old man sighed again. “I sup¬ 

pose I’ll be turned out, of course. Who would want 
to hire a man of my age? And even if I could get 
another job, I hate the thought of leaving this place. 
Tliis has not been a job for me, Mr. Morley,” said 
the old man. “It has been my home, my life. It 






42 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


meant something to me to come down here every day 
and fuss around these books—something that I can¬ 
not explain—something more than merely buying and 
selling books. Books get to be more than just paper 

and print to you, you know-” he was silent again 

and neither spoke a while. It was a minute or two 
before Val broke the silence. When he did he offered 
his suggestion tentatively, almost hesitatingly. 

“Why don’t you buy the place, then?” he asked. 
The other looked up at him with a half smile and shook 
his head. 

“Hardly,” he replied. “I’ve managed to save a 
little money—but far from enough to take over this 
business. You know-” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” offered Val, interrupting the 
old man. “But it wouldn’t take so much, and if you 
don’t mind accepting help from me, why , . .” 

The old man’s hand went to his throat and his old 
eyes shone a bit brighter. His voice quavered a little 
as he answered. 

“Why, Mr. Morley, it’s mighty decent of you. Of 
course, I couldn’t accept-” 

“Oh, simply a loan, of course,” interposed Val 
brusquely, waving any possible objections aside with 
his hand, which he flicked in the air with a slight ges¬ 
ture as though to a business man of his caliber it was 
nothing. “Just a loan, you know. Of course, I should 
expect it repaid with interest,” he stated, quite se¬ 
verely. “It is purely a business transaction—you un¬ 
derstand, to be sure.” 

The other smiled. “Ah, you say that, Mr. Morley, 
but I know it is because this old place means something 
more than just books to you, as it does to me, that 
you make that offer. We’ll call it a loan, since you 





A CERTAIN VAGUENESS OF MEMORY 43 


want it to be so—but iUs a kind thing to do for a 
burnt out old man, and IM like you to know that I ap¬ 
preciate it, my boy.” 

“Nonsense!” declared Val sternly. ^^One must put 
out one’s money at interest—it must be earning some¬ 
thing for you, eh.? And why not here.? So we’ll call 
it settled, then. You attend to the financial de¬ 
tails of it and let me know how much money will be 
needed.” 

Peters nodded and his thin, withered little body 
shook visibly. After many years he was to be inde¬ 
pendent at last—^he was to be the owner of his own 
bookshop. It was something to have lived for. And 
this shop—^he sobered in an instant, suddenly, as the 
thought of poor old Mat Masterson came back to him 
—he had almost forgotten. He was rejoicing over his 
own good fortune while his late employer and friend 
lay cold in the back room—unknowing in the midst 
of his own store, the work of his hands and his brains. 
He-” 

The voice of Val recalled Peters to himself. Val was 
leaning close to him—the others were in the rear room, 
Val spoke quietly, softly, into his ear. 

“About that—er—lady that was here last night— 
ah—you understand, don’t you, that—er- 

“Yes, perfectly, Mr. Morley,” answered the old man. 
“To tell the truth I scarcely noticed the young female 
person—er—not enough, to be sure, to give a coher¬ 
ent description of her. Impossible to do so, I might 
say.” 

“Of course. Thank you, Peters—as the proprietor 
of a bookshop, you are a model of discretion.” Val 
clapped him on the shoulder and arose as the coroner 
and his party came out of the rear room. 




44 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Is there any further need for my presence?’^ asked 
Val, addressing the group at random. 

The coroner answered. “I am through with you, if 
Sergeant Connolly is. There is nothing to be gained 
by detaining you. Of course, you may be wanted at 
the inquest—I think it will be the day after to-morrow 
^—but if we need you there you will be sent for.’^ 

Val bowed assent. “Surely. Just call me up at 
my home and leave the message if I’m not there. Any 

further information I can give you- 

“No, not now,” interposed Connolly. And under his 
breath: ^‘Further information—^holy smoked mack¬ 
erel !” 

“Righto,” said Val. “I’ll be off, then. Hope you 
have some luck in getting the murderer—beastly thing 
to do, you know.” 



VI 


THE START OP THE CHASE 

Under his light, unmoved exterior Val was deeply 
concerned about the affair. His emotions were varied 
and complex. In the first instance, he was deeply at¬ 
tached to old Masterson—one of those smooth, placid, 
deep affections that come sometimes between old and 
young, an affection built solidly on intimacy, sym¬ 
pathy and understanding. It had been as though out 
of all the youth in the world Mat Masterson had picked 
Val out; as though he had said: “Here, from out of 
the millions of young men, is the one I specially love; 
for behold, he mocks me not, saying ‘Go to, gray-beard 
loon’ or words to that effect. That is, here is one bird 
I really can stand.” And it was as though Val had 
said: “Here, out of all the millions of old men in 
the world, is one who does not think that a man who 
has youth must necessarily be a fool; for lo, am I not 
able to speak to him of the enthusiasms of youth. 
That is to say, I’m certainly strong for that old guy.” 

Not that either of them had ever formulated the 
matter thus succinctly. Men don’t do that at all, and 
women never do unless they don’t mean it. Yet the 
feeling ran true between these two. Mat typified all 
of age and the venerable to Val, and on his part Val 
was youth eternal to Mat—he was all of youth, a sort 
of a composite picture of all the beauty and fire and 
dreams in the world. 


45 


46 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


And now Mat was gone; the import of it came to 
Val keenly, oppressively and almost overwhelmingly 
as he stepped out of the bookshop into the sunlight. 
Mat was gone; Val felt that a definite era in his life 
had closed—something had been done that could never 
be done again. New things were before him, Val felt 
—a new phase of life, perhaps. And he was standing 
in sunlight that Mat would never again see. For a 
moment every nerve in him cried out for vengeance. 

And yet, what would the apprehension of the mur¬ 
derer mean.^^ Thought raced through his brain like 
lightning across a summer sky. It would mean the 
dragging in of the girl with copper burnished hair, his 
lady of the bookshop. He knew, of course, that she 
was in no way guilty of the deed, yet regardless of the 
circumstances, she must inevitably be connected with 
the affair in the papers—^her name dragged through 
the mire of publicity. He remembered her eyes—that 
strange look—^was it terror.?—of the night before. 
Curious, wasn’t it, how a man could remember a fleet¬ 
ing, evanescent glance in a woman’s eye—and not re¬ 
member the color of the clothes she wore.? Now, as 
Connolly might say- 

Now he had to find her. It might seem that he was 
going to a great deal of fuss and trouble about a girl 
he had only seen for a moment. That is, it might 
seem so to you. But it did not seem so to Valentine 
Morley. It was quite simple. He had seen, for an in¬ 
stant, a woman he really thought worth while. He 
had lost her again in that same instant. It was obvious 
that the thing for any sane man to do was to find her 
again. 

‘Wait a minute, Eddie,” he said to his impassive 
man. “Wait’ll I see where we’re going.” 



THE START OF THE CHASE 


47 


He stepped into his limousine and picked up a tele¬ 
phone directory which he had brought along for just 
that purpose. Pomeroy . . , Pomeroy ... he thumbed 
the pages rapidly until he came to the one he wanted. 
He found it. M-m-m . . . Pollock . . . Polonsky . . , 
Polsky . . . Pomerantz . . . ah, here it is, Pomeroy. 
He selected one that looked promising on West Sixty- 
eighth Street, told Eddie his destination, and settled 
himself back to his dreams and his reflections as the 
car throbbed under him and glided out into the road¬ 
way. 

It was not going to be hard. All he had to do was 
to keep going until he had exhausted the possibilities 
of the telephone book and the city directory. Even 
if he did not come across her directly, surely some 
Pomeroy in the city would be able to direct him to 
Jessica Pomeroy. There could not be many Jessicas, 
could there? No; he answered his own query. There 
could only be one—that is, always supposing that her 
name was really Jessica Pomeroy—a fact which he 
was taking for granted. 

He got no satisfaction, nor did he get any infor¬ 
mation, at the first Pomeroy on West Sixty-eighth 
Street. She was an old maiden lady who knew nobody 
of the name of Jessica Pomeroy and probably would 
not have told him if she did know. From her man¬ 
ner, she regarded him as possibly somebody who was 
without the law—a creature going around trying to 
pick up unprotected women. She strained her Peke 
closer to her thin breast as she coldly closed the door 
on him. 

The next place was East Ninety-second Street. He 
found that it overlooked the East River. He also 
found that the neighborhood was poor and squalid. 


48 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


peopled with crying babies and unkempt adults. He 
also found that the person who answered to the name 
of Pomeroy was a person of color, a negress who leered 
at him filthily, a black, shapeless mass who blended per¬ 
fectly with the dead and gone odors that filled the 
dark, uncarpeted halls. 

At the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth 
Pomeroy his luck was no better and at two o’clock in 
the afternoon he found himself at upper Broadway, 
nearly out of gasoline, hungry, and just about begin¬ 
ning to be angry. It was a curious thing that people 
all had to go and pick out one name—as though there 
weren’t enough to go around. Now here was Jessica 
Pomeroy—anybody seeing her would know that the 
name belonged to her and her alone—^why go out of 
your way, that being the case, and pick on the name 
Pomeroy when you could just as well select Cohen or 
Flanagan or Rocco or something equally flagrant? 
Val was beginning to be exasperated with people—they 
showed so little originality f 

They stopped at a restaurant to eat—Eddie eating 
lunch with his employer.. This was nothing new. 
Eddie often lunched with his employer when they were 
alone. There was more between them than is usual 
between master and man. They had served on the 
western front together, they had quenched their thirst 
in muddy water out of the same canteen and they had 
cursed the same second lieutenants together. The 
friendship between them was only thinly disguised by 
the superficial veil of conventionality that present day 
social custom had thrown over them. 

Over their meal Val explained to Eddie just what 
it was he was trying to do and how he was going about 


THE START OF THE CHASE 


49 


It, During the recital a newsboy came in with the 
early afternoon editions of the papers. 

“Let’s see what my newspaper has to say about 
it,” remarked Val, calling the newsboy and buying a 
copy of the Planet, Although it was not largely 
known, Valentine Morley was the largest individual 
stockholder in this immensely profitable enterprise, 
having been left a block of stock by his father that 
comprised forty per cent of the entire stock in exis¬ 
tence. To celebrate his personal interest in the paper 
Val permitted himself, occasionally, to read the sheet. 
That, so far, had been all the interest he took in it, 
although he was Vice-President of the corporation and 
journeyed down to Park Row twice a year to sign his 
name to papers which he was assured by his lawyer 
were fitted to be graced by his classic signature. 

The Planet, as might have been expected, had a 
great deal to say about the matter, which it called 
The Mysterious Bookshop Murder, the idea conveyed 
being, presumably, not that the bookshop was mys¬ 
terious but that the murder was mysterious. The 
woman in the case was called The Lady of the Book¬ 
shop, and the papers expressed the opinion that it 
would not be long before she was in the hands of the 
police. It was agreed that her apprehension was 
necessary if the police were to start untangling the 
dark snarl. She, undoubtedly, could throw light upon 
the matter. 

Mention was also made, of course, of Val—informa¬ 
tion gleaned from the coroner or Sergeant Connolly, no 
doubt. The account ended with a demand on the part 
of the Planet that the police do something—that the 
crime wave was becoming wavier every day; a per- 


50 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


manent wave, as it were—and that it was up to the 
police to locate the mysterious lady. 

“Well, we’ll just about have to beat the darn old 
police to it, Eddie,” remarked Val when they had thor¬ 
oughly digested what the newspapers had to say con¬ 
cerning the affair. Eddie nodded his head gravely. 

“Considering your feelings in that quarter, sir, we’ll 
just about have to lay a barrage all around her. We 
haven’t tried the Bronx yet,” remarked Eddie. 

“The Bronx!” ejaculated Val. “Eddie, how often 
do I have to tell you that it’s bad form to kid your 
employer—that it just simply is not done in our best 
circles.” 

“Just the same, if you don’t mind my saying so, 
sir, you never can tell,” persisted Eddie. “You’ve ex¬ 
hausted all of Manhattan, haven’t you?” Val nodded. 

“Well, then!” Eddie said this respectfully, as one 
should say such things to one’s boss, but there was a 
touch of triumph in it, too. He was human—and he 
knew this was one argument he would win. 

He did. Val capitulated with very little argument 
—^he certainly was not going to give up the search 
simply because it led him into the upper reaches of 
the Bronx—one should be prepared for hardship, he 
said. If any residents of the Bronx read this, it is 
understood that no offense was intended by Val—^he 
simply did not know that people lived there, that was 


VII 


THE TRAIL GETS WARMER 

The Bronx yielded no better success. It took sev¬ 
eral hours to exhaust its possibilities, but finally the 
seekers after Pomeroys were obliged to concede that 
if Jessica Pomeroy lived in the Bronx, she was not in 
the telephone book, anyway, nor was she known by her 
name to any of the Pomeroys they interviewed. 

At dinner time they drew up in front of VaPs home, 
tired though not discouraged. Chong had dinner ready 
in a few minutes, and Eddie became once more the im¬ 
passive servant waiting on his master at table. 

Val ate in silence for a long time, thinking over the 
surprising events of the day and planning a course of 
action. The tang of the chase was keen in him; his 
blood was beginning to course warm with the joy of 
the hunt. He was looking for a woman; not a woman 
—the woman. What was there on earth that a man 
could search for more precious than the one woman.? 
What could he find more worth the ardors of the 
search ? 

Val asked himself these questions mechanically, his 
mind turning, meanwhile, on the problem of locating 
Jessica Pomeroy. His mind, however, yielded him 
nothing, but a blank at the moment, and he gave vent 
to his irritation in a single expletive: 

“Damn he said; low but forcibly. 

51 


52 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


He looked up and Eddie Hughes was turning away, 
the ghost of a smile flickering on the ends of his lips, 
to be lost immediately in the mask of his countenance. 

“What the devil are you laughing at?’^ he asked. 

“Sorry, sir. I forgot myself,” replied Eddie. 
was thinking about the Japanese who described bil¬ 
liards as a game where two large men poked at three 
little balls with sticks, and one man said ‘Damn!^ and 
the other said ‘Hard luck, old man!’ ” He turned 
away. 

Val could not resist a smile. “What’s that got to 
do with this case?’^ he inquired. 

“Nothing, sir,” responded Eddie. “Only, in a bil¬ 
liard game, a man generally has another chance to 
shoot.” 

“You mean you have an idea.?^” queried Val. The 
other nodded. 

“I think so, sir.” 

“Well, if you have, spill it. Don’t pull any of your 
old allegories on me—I’m not a Bible student,” 
snapped out Val. 

“Why, it’s just this, sir. You know the Plcmet, of 
course.” 

“I ought to,” came back Val, “I own a couple of 
million dollars’ worth of stock in it.” 

“Exactly.” Eddie bowed his head respectfully. 
“Well, if you want information about anybody in the 
world, a newspaper is the place where you stand the 
best chance of getting it. If there has ever been a 
Pomeroy who had a daughter by the name of Jessica 
—^if he has ever had reason to figure in the papers at 
all—you’ll probably find out what you want in the 
‘morgue’ of the Planet, Dessert, sir.?” 

Val stared at him as though he were a wraith risen 


THE TRAIL GETS WARMER 


m 


from the dead. After a long moment he pounded on 
the table with his fist. 

“Well, if I’m not the daddy of all the dumbbells 
in the world!” he burst out. “Of course—the Planet! 
Fm Vice-President of the corporation—all I have to 
do is walk in and pick out my information, if any. 
To-morrow morning, first thing, Eddie. Why-” 

“Dessert, sir.^” asked Eddie again, impassively. 

• •••••• 

Wallace Chillingham, editor of the Planet, busily 
engaged on a manuscript, looked up irritably when 
the door of his private office opened. He had dis¬ 
tinctly instructed his office boy that he was to be per¬ 
mitted to work in peace, without let or hindrance, or 
interruption of any kind. And now here he was both¬ 
ering him again by- 

^‘Get out of here before I hit you so hard that your 

whole family will feel sick, you little beast-” he 

rasped at the boy, and then looked up in astonishment, 
because it wasn’t his office boy at aU. It was Valentine 
Morley. 

“Hello, Wally,” he smiled, seating himself on a cor¬ 
ner of the other’s flat-topped desk and lighting a ciga¬ 
rette. “I see that you’re your own good-natured self, 
as usual.” He shook his head lugubriously in mock con¬ 
cern at the editor. “What a disposition! If I had 
a disposition like that I’d swap it for a bulldog and 
drown the poor mutt.” 

The editor laughed, “How’d you get in.?^” 

“I had to kill a couple of office boys and other 
menials—but I’m feeling full of pep this morning, so 
that’s all right. How’s every little darn thing with 
you 





THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘E. O.” answered the editor. “I’m busy. YouVe 
a nice boy, Val, and I like to see you get along—so do 
so. Remember, you expect dividends from this old 
sheet semi-annually and-” 

“That’s so,” mused Val, as though this had but oc¬ 
curred to him now for the first time. “I have got a 
little stock here, haven’t I. I’ve been informed that 
I’m Vice-President, or some other fool thing in this 
yellow sheet—t-so, unless I have the wrong dope as tq 
what I really am here, I’m an official and ought to be 
treated with respect. And what do I get.^” He went 
on oratorically with a recital of his wrongs. “I get 
ordered out, that’s what I get. I get contumely heaped 
all over my bean. I—say, Wally, did you ever see 
any contumely.^” he broke off to ask. “I mean-” 

“Oh, shut up!” said Wally. “Bustin’ into my 
office like this 1 What the devil do you want—-and 
make it snappy, too!” He roared this at Val. Val 
smiled and slipped down into a chair alongside of the 
editor. 

“There, there,” he soothed him, patting his sleeve, 
“calm yourself, ole kid—I’m coming to what I want. 
Suppose I were to teU you the name of the mysterious 
lady in the Masterson case—eh.?^ What would you 
do 

The other stared at him in unbelievable astonish¬ 
ment. “Do—you—^know—that.'^” he asked slowly. 
Val nodded. 

“Then, for the lova Mike,” he entreated, leaning to¬ 
ward Val and gripping his knee with long, bony fingers, 
“tell it to me, will you.? You’ll see darn quick what 
I can do with it ? Any other paper or the police know 
it yet.?” Val shook his head. 

“Gawd, what a beat!” ejaculated the editor. “Quick, 




THE TRAIL GETS WARMER 


55 


Val, give me the dope. What’s her name and where’s 
she live and how does she come into this thing and-” 

“Lay off! Lay off!” roared Val, holding him off. 
“I’m not goin’ to tell you her name—I simply wanted 
to know what you would do if I did tell you, that’s 
all.” 

“You’re notT^ The editor stared at him. “Why, 
you insane, simple minded millionaire, you won’t get 
out of this office alive if you don’t—why. I’ll tear it 
out of you with these hands, you crazy oilcan, you!” 
He had risen in his excitement. Val calmly shoved him 
down in his chair again with a bang that augured ill 
for the cane seat. The editor’s teeth shook with the 
shock. He leaned forward again. 

“But listen, Val—^we gotta have that name. It’s a 
beat—the beat of the century!” he implored. “This 
is your paper, Val —your paper! Why, there’s 
nothing we couldn’t-” 

“Cut it out, Wally!” snapped Val. “No chance, get 
me.f^ No chance-” 

*‘But why. Foolish.?” persisted the editor. “This is 
too damn important too- 

“It’s more important to me. Listen and I will a tale 
unfold, Wally, that will cause the red red gore to course 
quicker even through those anemic, desiccated veins of 
yours. Listen and I will spin you a yarn in strict con¬ 
fidence—and if you print a word of it, you pirate. I’ll 
come down here and hit you so hard that you’ll bust 
a hole in your shadow.” He looked at him signifi¬ 
cantly, taking hold of the editor’s wrist and squeezing 
until the tears came to Wally’s eyes. 

“Quit, you crazy murderer, you! Whatcha tryin’ 
to do, anyway—collect my insurance? I won’t say a 
word.” Val let go. 






56 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Ah,’^ he said blandly, ‘^since you agree with me so 
absolutely in the need for secrecy, I feel I can un¬ 
burden this bosom to you as to an understanding, 
friendly soul. Know then, oh, Wally, that this poor 
heart of mine burns with love for-” 

He told him all details of the case, leaving out only 
mention of the name of the girl. He was willing to 
trust Chillingham, who would rather cut out his tongue 
than betray a friend—newspaper ethics to the con¬ 
trary notwithstanding—but yet, it was just as well 
not to put too great a strain on a man’s will power. 
And this would certainly have been a beat! 

Val told of his unavailing search for the girl the 
day before. 

^Well, what do you want me to do?” queried Wally. 

“Why, it occurred to me—to Eddie Hughes, that is 
•—that you might have some information about her or 
her family in your files—the ‘morgue,’ don’t you 
know?” said Val. 

“That’s so,” answered the editor. “Probably we 
have. Just tell me the name and I’ll go right out and 
get the dope-” 

“Good idea!” snapped Val. “Just tell you the name, 
eh! Well, I guess I can look up an alphabetical file 
as well as you can—or anybody else in this godless 
joint. Just show me the place and I’ll do all the dope 
getting necessary, see.” 

“We don’t allow people not connected with this 
office to look in our files,” responded the editor coldly. 
“We don’t-” 

“Say, listen, my boy,” said Val softly. “I’m con¬ 
nected with this office just enough to be able to vote 
you out of a job—get me? My forty per cent of stock 
says I go into that ‘morgue’—show me where it is if 





THE TRAIL GETS WARMER 67 

you want to keep in good health and see the beautiful 
sunshine yet awhile.” 

Chillingham capitulated. He knew he had no ground 
to stand on, and that when Val spoke in that tone 
something was very apt to drop. The Vice-President 
had a right in the files—a child would have admitted 
that. ^ 

Half an hour later, dusty from his delving into the 
files, Val had gathered what he thought would be val¬ 
uable. It was a stroke of good luck, nothing more nor 
less, he said to himself—the fact that he happened to 
be a stockholder in an influential newspaper. 

More than a year before, he found, old Peter J. 
Pomeroy, a breeder and racer of thoroughbred horses, 
had died, leaving as his only issue a daughter named 
Jessica. The obituary notice informed him that the 
funeral was to be from the deceased’s late residence, 
999 West 86th Street, New York. 

He found that the address given was a family hotel, 
overlooking Riverside Drive and the Hudson. The 
elevator man, who was new to the job, had never heard 
of anybody of the name of Pomeroy. ^Certainly they 
were not living there now, Val went to the ofiice of the 
hotel and inquired of the manager. 

Yes, Peter Pomeroy had lived there with his daugh¬ 
ter. She had stayed on for a while after his death, 
but a few months ago she had moved. He knew her 
new address, it being occasionally necessary for him to 
forward mail to her. 

“Fine,’^ remarked Val. ‘‘What is it?” 

The manager looked him over calmly. “I don’t 
know,” he said slowly, “whether I ought to give you 
her address.” 

“Why not?” demanded Val. 


58 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘WeU—^how do I know she wants you to have it? I 
think a great deal of Miss Pomeroy—have known her 
for years—and I wouldn’t want to give her address to 
a man she did not want to see. I was very sorry when 
financial reverses made it impossible for her to stay 
here, where I could keep an eye on her—^but she re¬ 
fused to stay under the circumstances. If her finances 
had-” 

^‘WeU, that’s what I want to see her about,” put in 
Val. ‘T have information of great financial value to 
her and- 

‘Well, why don’t you write it?” queried the hotel 
man. “I’ll see that she gets the letter.” 

Val shook his head. “This is not that kind of infor¬ 
mation—it’s got to be given personally. In fact, I 
don’t mind telling you that I have a large sum of 
money with me that belongs to Miss Pomeroy—^money 
which I wish to give her personally.” 

The hotel man considered for a few moments. He 
was an elderly, slow man, calm and sedate in his move¬ 
ments and in his habits of thought, and not to be 
rushed off his feet by every nice looking stranger who 
happened into his hotel. 

“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said at length. “Give 
me your name and I’ll call her up and ask her whether 
she wants to see you.” 

“Fair enough,” said Val. “My name is Valentine 
Morley.” The older man looked at him with new in¬ 
terest. Everybody in New York knew Valentine 
Morley, possessor of the Morley millions, to say 
nothing of the Congressional medal of honor. The 
hotel man reconsidered once more. 

“Well, that being the case, I guess it will be all right. 
I won’t bother to telephone. I recognize you now,” 




THE TRAIL GETS WARMER 


59 


he said. ‘^Just wanted to make sure you weren’t some 
cheap trifler who wanted to annoy her, that’s all. 
Sorry.’’ 

‘‘That’s all right,” smiled Val. “You were perfectly 
right—if I were you I wouldn’t give her address to 
anybody else, though, for a while. I’ll get her to call 
you up and confirm that.” 

Twenty minutes later Valentine Morley was calling 
upon Jessica Pomeroy. 


vm 


THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS 

The house to which he had been directed was in a 
side street, one of a whole row of flat houses, all with 
brownstone stoops, all four stories in height—walk-up 
flats—most of them fallen upon parlous times from 
their previous fairly high estate—if a flat house can he 
presumed to have had a high estate in some mysterious 
past. 

With his motor chugging at the door and his heart 
chugging within him Val rang the bell labeled “Pome¬ 
roy” and was rewarded almost immediately by a tick¬ 
ing at the lock of the door that suggested to him that 
he could enter if he pushed the door while the ticking 
was in progress. 

He pushed the door and ascended the steps that pre¬ 
sented themselves to him at the right of the hallway. 
Two flights above him he noticed a lightening of the 
encircling gloom of the hall. This he took, and rightly, 
to be due to the fact that somebody had opened the 
door to see who was coming. He gained the door and 
confronted a neat old woman who looked at him inquir¬ 
ingly. 

“I’m looking for Miss Jessica Pomeroy’s apart¬ 
ment,” he said. 

“This is her apartment,” said the old woman. ^‘Who 
wants to see Miss Pomeroy?” 

60 


THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS 


61 


He extracted a card from his wallet, handed it to 
the ancient servitor and was bidden to come inside. 
He was ushered into a living room that was a grateful 
model of good taste, when you take into consideration 
what he had expected from the surrounding circum¬ 
stances. 

‘‘Miss Pomeroy will be out directly, sir,” said the 
old woman. He nodded and seated himself on a com¬ 
fortable divan, inspecting the room with interest. The 
furniture was gracefully made, combining comfort with 
a quiet elegance that spoke much for the occupant; a 
few Japanese prints were on the wall, and over the 
period mirror on one wall was a colored print of a 
blooded racehorse—not the usual racehorse print, how¬ 
ever—it was to be seen that this print was the work 
of a master. 

On another wall was a Whistler etching, skyrockets 
and all, and under it was a blue vase in the best Ming 
period. The portieres and draperies were in deep blue 
velvet, drawn back by cords of burnt orange, and the 
curtains were a delicate tracery against the transpar¬ 
ency of the windows. A baby grand piano jutted out 
of one corner, and he was thankful that the effect of 
the room had not been spoiled by an upright, because, 
he considered, there are no uprights that are not ugly. 
It was a comfortable room that looked as though it were 
lived in, with the piano open and a French song on the 
rack, as though the singer had just stepped out for a 
moment, and other music scattered carelessly over the 
top, around the base of the Japanese lamp that stood 
on the piano. 

At his hand were a couple of library books—^he 
opened them. One was a volume of Leonard Merrick. 
The other was a thi^ volume, a play by Herman Bahr 


62 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


—‘‘The Master” in the excellent translation of Glazer. 
He nodded approvingly—this girl had a comfortable 
taste in literature. He was engaged in examining the 
latter book when the portieres parted and she entered, 
standing for a moment against the portieres, with her 
copper burnished hair flying against the deep blue in a 
contrast that would have brought joy to the heart of 
Velasquez. 

He was on his feet in an instant, never taking his 
eyes from her—actually eating her up with his burning 
eyes. Her gown, of some soft stuff that lay lovingly 
next to the white skin of her neck and flared out into 
panniers at the hips, had a touch of green in it—the 
touch of green that every light haired girl knows so 
well how to employ. 

Her eyes were two seas of troubled color, and in her 
cheeks flared two bright spots that were all the more 
ravishing for the fact that they never came out of a 
drug store. He could see that she recognized him in¬ 
stantly—the flash of surprise that came into her eyes 
told him that. Her hand went to her throat in a queer 
motion, as though her breath came hard, and came 
away again wearily, down to her side. 

“Mr. Morley?” she inquired, and Val had to admit 
to himself that never had he heard music that was com¬ 
parable to her intonation of his name. It was like a 
harp in the south wind, he told himself. He bowed. 

“I must apologize for this intrusion,’^ he began in 
the conventional form, though his whole being cried out 
against it. Apologize for nothing! He was here be¬ 
cause he wanted to be, and a whole battalion of police 
couldn^t keep him away. 

“I must apologize for this intrusion,” he said again, 
and she smiled. 


THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS 63 

“That^s two apologies,’^ she said. accept both of 
them. Now, if you’ll tell me-” 

“Yes, I’ll tell all,” he grinned, and they both laughed; 
neither knew why, exactly. There was something 
vibrating between them, something of an ethereal chord 
to which they were both attuned, something. . . . 

“Won’t you sit down for a moment, and tell me about 
it?” She nodded to the divan. She sat down opposite 
him and he did as he was bidden, 

“Why—^why—er—the—fact is-” he started 

coherently. 

“You can smoke if you want to,” she put in, seeing 
that he was ill at ease. He smiled his gratitude and 
lighted a cigarette, feeling more easy at once, 

“You see,” he commenced, “I was in old Masterson’s 
store the other day when you—er—released some books 
to him.” She nodded. 

“I remember,” she said. “I noticed you.” She had 
noticed him. Val could have shouted it from the house¬ 
tops. Miracle of miracles—she had seen him—she 
knew that he was alive—she was conscious of Valentine, 
Morley. “I noticed you.” Val was familiar with the 
poets, but at the moment he could not think of a poet 
who had ever lived who had written a sweeter line than 
that. 

“Well, I rather took a fancy to the books,” he went 
on, “and I bought one of the bundles from Mat. That’s 
how I happened to know your name—it was in one of 
the books. You—er—know what happened at Master- 
son’s, don’t you ?” He paused. 

A look of absolute fright came into her eyes. Her 
white hand went to her throat again. He could see 
she was the victim of some wraith of fear that haunted 
her waking and her sleeping moments. It was not a 




64 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


new fear, he could see that. It was something ex¬ 
pected—something that was always there. 

She nodded her head slowly. “And you^re from the 
police-” 

He laughed reassuringly, longing to take her in his 
arms and swear to protect her forever. 

“Certainly not—I’m from Valentine Morley. You 
see, I happened to be looking through the books and I 
found something in one of them that might be of value 
to you—^^that’s why I took the trouble to look you up.” 
He plunged his hand into his pocket and fished out his 
wallet. Out of his wallet he took the ten thousand 
dollar bill and handed it to her. 

She gave a gasp of utter astonishment and surprise 
when she saw what it was. 

“Why, it’s a ten—thousand—dollar bill!” she ejacu¬ 
lated. “A ten thousand dollar billl” 

He nodded his head. “I rather thought you might 
be glad to see that- 

“Glad 1” she echoed, “Why, if you know—if you only 
knew how I needed this money-” 

“Yes,” he said, “there are few people who don’t need 
ten thousand dollars.” 

“How can I thank you for-” she began. 

“Don’t try,” he put in. “It was nothing, really. 
Just a pleasure to be able to-” 

“Not many people would have returned it,” she in¬ 
sisted. ^‘You must know how grateful I am to you.” 
She leaned forward and put her small hand on his arm. 
A thrill went through him. He remembered Browning’s 
line about the hand of the wife of Andrea del Sarto—• 
he was a Browning enthusiast—“A woman in itself.” 
That’s what her hand was, he told himself—a woman in 
itself, in its beautiful, soft and shapely whiteness. 







THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS 


65 


father must have placed it there—^in the book,” 
she said, removing her hand. 

^‘It was in a Bible,he said. She smiled. 

‘*1 suppose he decided it was safe there, because 
nobody ever would open it.” They both smiled at 
that. 

“My father was a peculiar man,” she explained. 
“He was always afraid of banks—would not trust 
them. So he left his money in all sorts of peculiar 
places. Why, when he died we never could find—^but 
there, I must not trouble you with my private affairs.” 

“Yes, but you must, Miss Pomeroy. If I can be of 
any assistance to you, why-” 

The troubled look came into her eyes again as she 
shook her head. “I’m afraid nobody can help me after 
what—after-” 

“You mean after what happened to Masterson yes¬ 
terday?” he inquired. She nodded. 

“You see, it’s something horrible, something I can’t 
talk about-” 

“You know who did it?” he queried. 

She nodded her head slowly. “I think I can guess,” 
she said. “But-” 

“Well, if it troubles you like that, don’t tell me. 
But I would like to be of assistance, I assure you, Miss 
Pomeroy-” 

A sudden fear came into her face again, a ghost of 
terror that slipped across her face like a mask. 

“Oh, I had forgotten!” she gasped. “You must go, 
Mr. Morley. You mustn’t stay here. I am expect¬ 
ing some one- 

“But can’t I see you again?” he persisted boldly, 
though his heart was beating absurdly in anticipation 
of her answer. Suppose she should say no! 








66 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘Wes, yes!” she answered hastily, rising. “But you 
must go now.” 

“But when?” he asked. “I feel that you are in 
trouble. Miss Pomeroy. I would-” 

“Perhaps—but why should you be mixed up in this 
terrible affair?” she asked. She looked at him keenly, 
appraisingly. “And yet I feel that you may be able 
to help,” she said, and his heart gave a complete somer¬ 
sault and landed in his throat somewhere. He could 
help her I 

“Shall I come here to-morrow night-” he offered. 

“No—^not here,” she said swiftly. “You must not 
be seen here. I’ll meet you—say, at the Giltmore 
Hotel at seven thirty—in Peacock Alley. You can 
take me to dinner. Will that suit?” He nodded his 
head happily. 

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and he heard the old 
woman going to the door, 

“He’s coming now,” said the girl. “You must go!” 
There was a look of absolute terror in her eyes. 

“But perhaps I’d better stay,” he offered. “This 
man who is coming, he- 

“No, you must go,” she said. She was leading him 
toward the entrance foyer now, a small, square room 
into which one stepped right from the hall. The door 
opened and the old woman admitted a tall, middle-aged 
man who sauntered in as though he belonged there. 
He and Val gazed at each other for a long moment in 
the foyer. He was big, but lithe as a cat for his size, 
'and he had his hands in his pockets negligently, not 
even removing them when the girl spoke to him and 
I told him to go into the living room, where she would 
join him presently. He bowed mockingly, looking at 
Morley squarely with his hard blue eyes. His mouth, 





THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS 


67 


composed of two thin lips, bent down at the corners, 
was cruel and sensuous, Val decided, as he watched hi^ 
back retreating into the living room. 

‘‘To-morrow then,” he said to the girl. 

She nodded her head. “Yes, to-morrow—if you still 
care to meet me.” 

“Still care—I don’^t care for anything else in the 
world. Miss Pomeroy,” he insisted, and she smiled at 
his ardor. “To-morrow, then.” 

He opened the door. As he turned to take her ex¬ 
tended hand he glanced through the drawn portieres 
into the living room, where the big man had stationed 
himself at one of the windows and was inspecting the 
street outside. Val, looking at him, could not help a 
gasp of astonishment. Having removed his hands from 
his pockets, the man was standing with his back to 
them in a negligent attitude, and a singular, creepy 
feeling came over Val. 

The strange visitor had no hands. His arms ended 
in two stumpy wrists. 


IX 


TRAILED ! 

VaI/ ordered Eddie to drive to the University Club 
and settled back on the cushions to discuss with him¬ 
self this further aspect of the affair. 

This man with no hands! Val was free to admit to 
himself that he did not like him, nor any part of him. 
There was something sinister about him that repelled, 
yet he held him with an air of hazy mystery. So it had 
been no dream, this vision he had had of an intruder 
whose arms ended in stumpy, sawed-off wrists. He had 
actually been in VaPs bedroom—^in fact, he had stolen 
the books from him. 

Ah, yes, the books. Val permitted himself to con¬ 
sider them for an instant. E^ddently they held the ex¬ 
planation of all this mystery. Everything seemed to 
revolve about them. A man is killed in order that 
they might be recovered. Another man is drugged to 
sleep and the books removed from his room. There 
must be a powerful motive concealed behind such de¬ 
velopments. What was it that these commonplace 
enough books held that made it so important that they 
be recovered? 

And if they were really so valuable, in fact, why had 
Jessica Pomeroy been so willing—even anxious, it 
seemed—to get rid of them? Was there a message 
from the dead in them? Some secret that had 
68 


TRAILED I 69 

gone to the grave with Miss Pomeroy’s father? Val 
shrugged his shoulders and gave it up. 

Where did the man without hands come into this, 
anyway? Val knew now that it was the same who had 
drugged him and stolen the books. That being the 
case, probably he could cast light upon the murder of 
poor old Mat Masterson. In fact, undoubtedly he? 
could. Evidently he did not commit the murder him¬ 
self—how could a man with no hands beat in another’s 
head with a heavy, blunt instrument? But he was in 
the affair, that was certain. 

So was Jessica Pomeroy, for that matter. He re-^ 
membered now that she had thought him from the 
police—that she had shown fear at mention of the mur¬ 
der, and fear at the advent of this man, this uncanny 
stranger with the wicked eyes and mouth and the muti¬ 
lated limbs. Yet, not being implicated herself in the 
murder, of course—^being nothing but an innocent by¬ 
stander, as it were, why should she not hand over this 
man to the police and let them sift the matter to the 
bottom ? 

Val decided that she could not do that. There was 
far more to this affair than appeared on the surface; 
there were things no stranger should know about; no 
stranger, that is, beside himself. But he had begun 
not to consider himself a stranger where this beautiful 
girl was concerned. In the two short glimpses he had 
had of her, she had already taken possession of his 
thoughts to the exclusion of almost every other subject. 

What was the mystery that surrounded her? Val 
wondered. Probably, in some way, she was in the 
power of this sinister cripple. She feared him, of that 
he was certain; yet she did not refuse to admit him 
to her apartment; and, indeed, he entered as though 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


TO 

he belonged there—as though Jessica herself was, in 
some manner, his own. Could it be that he—^but Val 
cast the thought aside. It was plain enough that 
Jessica loathed the man. 

Well, he would learn something of all this to-morrow, 
at dinner. He smiled as he gave himself over to re¬ 
flections at what he would say to her and of what she 
would say to him. How she would smile at him tenderly 
with her eyes over the gleaming silver and shining 
white cloth of the dinner table at the Giltmore. He 
knew an alcove, somewhat away from the rest of the 
dining room, where they might have comparative 
privacy. That would be good. He could call up the 
Giltmore at once and reserve that table for to-morrow 
night. 

His heart sang within him as he reflected on these 
matters. Here he was, young, in perfect health, be¬ 
ginning to enjoy life again, no financial worries of any 
kind except how to dispose of his abnormally large in¬ 
come—and now, into his life like a falling star shooting 
across the summer skies came Jessica Pomeroy with all 
her radiant beauty. And with her came mystery and 
adventure, murder and sudden death, messages from the 
dead and ten thousand dollar bills, engagements for 
dinner at seven thirty at the Giltmore, men with no 
hands . . . everything necessary, in fact, to feed the 
fires of romance and youth. Life was a fine proposi¬ 
tion—there was no getting away from that. Poor old 
Mat Masterson! 

The car swung around the comer into Fifth Avenue 
in its most exclusive part, and stopped at the door of 
the University Club. Eddie Hughes jumped off and 
opened the door, rousing Val from his reverie. 


TRAILED! 71 

‘‘Eh, what?’’ said Val, coming to himself. “Oh, the 
club, to be sure.” 

“Yes, sir, the club,” said Eddie impassively. “Shall 
I wait, sir?” 

“No. Go home and tell Chong I’ll be home to 
dinner—and tell him to make it good, too.” This 
was a joke, because Chong’s cooking was the glory of 
Val’s apartment, and no one knew this better than the 
suave little Oriental himself, who worshiped Val with 
an abiding love that was second only to the love Eddie 
had for his employer. 

“You needn’t come back, Eddie. I’ll try to stagger 
home on foot.’^ 

“Yes, sir. Don’t stagger through any dark streets, 
sir,” replied Eddie evenly. 

Val looked at him in inquiry. 

“Why, what do you mean?” he asked. “Anything 
up that I don’t know about?” Eddie, as Val well knew, 
was not accustomed to making remarks at random to 
his employer. 

Eddie stepped closer and whispered. There was- 
nobody near them, so there was no reason for whisper¬ 
ing, but it suited the moods of both men. 

“There was two men, sir.” He paused and looked at 
Val significantly, mysteriously. 

“Two men!” Val gazed at him. “You mean-” 

“Yes,” came back Eddie. “They followed us in a 
taxi. I kinda thought you might of took notice, sir, 
but I guess you was too busy thinking. They was 
hanging around across the street from our last stop, 
with a cab handy, and when we beat it I looked back 
and noticed them give ’er the gas and followed.” In 
moments of forgetfulness Eddie always lapsed into the 



72 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

dialect of the east side streets where he spent his 
youth. 

‘‘H-mm!’^ Val cleared his throat importantly. So 
there were mysterious men following him in taxicabs. 
That was good. He could have wished for nothing 
better. There might be adventure later—there woul4 
be fighting, and blood, and kisses—^how did one manage 
to live until the next night; to pass the time stupidly 
until seven thirty of the next evening at the Giltmore, 
Hotel and- 

‘‘Is that all, sir.f*” broke in Eddie. 

“All right, Eddie. You can go. I’ll watch out for 
them.” 

Seated at a window of the club he watched the 
kaleidoscope that is Fifth Avenue and pitied the^ 
passers-by who probably lived such uneventful sordid 
existences that nobody shadowed them, nobody made 
attacks on their lives; they did not know Jessica Pome¬ 
roy, to say nothing of never having made up their 
minds to marry said Jessica Pomeroy—which, by the 
way, Val had already decided to do. For some people 
life was very drab and lusterless. 

“Some filly, that,” remarked a drawling voice next 
to him. He turned, roused from his reverie, and beheld 
Freddy Vandenburgh, who lived, thought and expressed 
himself only in terms of the race track. Freddy 
nodded to a girl getting into a machine at the curb. 

“Oh, fair,” admitted Val, hesitating to admit that, 
with the exception of one, there were any good looking 
girls in the world. 

“I say, Val, you’re just the man I wanted to see,” 
said Freddy. “You see, I’ve got a good, first hand, 
sure-fire tip on the third race at Belmont to-morrow 
and- 




TRAILED I 73 

^‘Well, why don’t you play it?” inquired Val, though 
he knew the reason as well as Freddy did. 

‘‘Well, the fact is, Val—the reason why—that is, 
you know, my next quarter’s allowance isn’t due for 
three weeks and-” 

“What about last quarter’s allowance, Freddy?” 

Freddy smiled ingenuously. “The last quarter’s! 
Ha! That’s rather rich—^most of it went to you when 
it did finally roll around. So I sort of thought-” 

“You sort of thought that maybe-” Val looked 

at him pointedly. 

“Exactly!” Freddy sighed with relief. That was 
just what he had thought. 

“Well, there’s nothing doing, Fred, old kid,” he said 
with decision. 

“Why, what do you mean, Val?” said Freddy with 
alarm. 

“Oh, nothing,” yawned Val, “except that the last 
time you had a tip that was sure to come through it 
cost me just fifteen hundred berries—too much money 
to put on a racehorse that won’t race. The poor plug 
is probably running yet. I-” 

“I say, Val, I didn’t mean I want you to go in on 
this with me, you know,” protested Freddy. “I just 
thought you might help me out with a loan, seeing I’m 
so short myself. This is different—this is a dead-sure 
thing—I got it from the owner himself. This here 
Jessica filly-” 

“Jessica?” asked Val, sitting up with interest. 

The other nodded. “Keep it quiet, though. No use 
everybody being in on it. Only brings the odds up, 
y’know. If you’d only let me have, say, five hundred, 
Val-” 

“All right, Freddy. Five hundred it is.” He pulled 








74 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


out his check book. A sudden thought occurred to 
him. Freddy had been following the races—to the 
great destruction of his generous quarterly allowance— 
for many years. Perhaps he would know. . . • 

“Freddy?’^ 

‘‘Yes, what is it.?’’ 

“Did you ever hear of a racing man by the name of 
Peter J. Pomeroy?” He asked this nonchalantly, as 
though it was nothing to him; just something he was 
idly curious about. He gazed out of the window again 
at the passing show, pointedly careless about Freddy’s 
reply. 

“Old Pete Pomeroy? You bet I did,” replied Freddy. 
“One of the finest.” Freddy knew everybody who was 
anybody on the track—it would have been strange if he 
did not know Pomeroy. 

“Why do you ask, Val, ole kid?” 

“Oh, no particular reason, Freddy. What kind was 
he ?” 

“Died more than a year ago, I think—saw something 
about his bally demise in the papers. Awf’ly decent 
sort, Val—one of those old southern gentlemen. Funny 
thing about him—used to breed and race, both. Sort 
of eccentric. Afraid of banks, or something like that; 
say, that bird used to carry as much as a hundred 
thousand dollars around with him, sometimes. I’ve 
seen that much on him more than once. Had all kinds 
of money and figured it was just as good to him as to 
a bank—and not half so much of a temptation, I guess. 
Anyway, everybody knew he never put his money in a 
bank—funny, he never was held up. 

“Queer duck. Had his breeding farm somewhere 
down in Virginia—near Old Point Comfort, y’know—I 
think it was a little on the other side of Hampton; 


TRAILED I 


75 


tremendous estate, and they say he had a sort of a 
private race track on his estate, where he used to work 
them out. Had a daughter, too, I think. I saw her 
once, five—six years ago—just out of boarding 
school.’’ Val sat up again. 

^‘His daughter?” he repeated. 

The other nodded lazily. “Yeh. Funny lookin’ little 
tike, too. Skinny legged, with freckles and ugly red 
hair—I say, what’s up?” he asked in alarm. 

Val had shut up his check book and put it in his 
pocket. 

“Nothing,” he said shortly. “Only you don’t get a 
nickel, that’s all.” Ugly red hair, indeed. Freckles 
and skinny legs. The poor, misguided simp! Had the 
nerve to ask him for money, too. Why—— 

“Oh, I say, Val, you know you-” he broke off 

with a whistle, and a grin spread its way across his 
pleasant, weak face. 

“So that’s it,” he said, enlightened. “The filly, eh? 
Well, you know, Val, she was only a kid when I saw 
her,” he said ingratiatingly. “You know, that kind 
usually grow up into awf’ly fine looking girls. In fact, 
come to think of it, this girl’s eyes were great— nicest 
I ever saw—white star on her forehead and—er, I 
mean, nice skin, and the freckles were really very fetch¬ 
ing, if you know what I mean. She was-” 

Val laughed. “Freddy, you old hypocrite, you win! 
Only the next time you say a girl has red hair think it 
over carefully before you open that fool mouth of 
yours. That nearly cost you five hundred dollars, and 
cheap at the price, too. Now, this Jessica horse how 
about placing a little bet on her for me, too ? ’ 




X 


‘‘keep away from that gire!^’ 

The coroner’s inquest, the next morning at ten, was 
the usual humdrum bit of business where both the 
coroner and the police are at sea. Both Val and Sam 
Peters were put upon the stand, and both received 
rather sharp questioning concerning the young woman 
in the case—the girl who had sold the books which 
were subsequently stolen. It appeared that the entire 
case hinged on the robbery of the books—those which 
had disappeared from Val’s apartment as well as those 
which had cost poor Mat Masterson his life. 

Sam Peters, for his part, was legitimately hazy about^ 
the appearance of the girl. She had meant nothing to 
him—just another seller of books. They came into the 
store all the time—sometimes twenty or thirty a day, 
men and women. He was not accustomed to paying 
much attention to them. He gave what description he 
could, but it was vague and hazy. 

But when it came to a hazy description, Val was the 
person who seemed to be able to deliver the goods. 
There have been hazy descriptions of women before 
now, but never has Val’s description been surpassed for 
indefinite, fog-like vagueness. This is no brief for 
perjury, and it might be argued that Val was com¬ 
mitting perjury. If it was perjury, he did it lightly 
and joyfully—let that be an extenuation, if not an 
76 


“KEEP AWAY FROM THAT GIRL!’’ 77 

excuse. He intended no perjury, no violation of his 
oath. He silenced his conscience by giving the descrip¬ 
tion of a young girl as she should have appeared to 
the usual, disinterested observer in a public book store 
who had no business to notice her, anyway, and who— 
if he did notice her, did so in a simply casual manner 
that took in nothing of her looks or her appearance 
and contented itself by noticing merely that she was a 
person of the opposite sex and that she was young—or 
of an indeterminate ^ge, as Val testified. Indetermi¬ 
nate was correct, he admitted to himself. He was unde¬ 
termined as to whether her age was twenty-one or 
twenty-two—^wasn’t that indeterminate? 

“I’ll tell the astigmatic universe that’s indetermi¬ 
nate,” he told himself, and having once more won a 
strategic victory over the still voice of conscience, he 
smiled blandly at the coroner and the coroner’s jury 
and hoped he would be able to assist them still further. 
He intended, let it be said, to bring the murderer of his 
friend to earth, to hand him over to justice, but he did, 
not intend to do it until matters were so arranged that 
it could be done without bringing a certain woman into 
the case. Unhampered by the police, he was sure he 
would be able to work swiftly and surely, considering 
the strands of circumstance he held in his hands—but 
he would not be unhampered by the police if they knew. 
It was simplest, then, and best, to conceal what he 
knew from them. 

The coroner’s jury brought in the usual verdict in 
such cases: “Death ... violent blow ... at the 
hand or hands of person or persons unknown. . . .” 

Val spoke to Sam Peters in the hall. Mat’s out-of- 
town sister was there, too, and Sam introduced him to 
her. Val spoke briefly to her, and an arrangement was 


78 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


agreed to whereby Sam was to continue the business 
until the settlement of the estate, thereafter to buy the 
business at the price set at an appraisal by an expert. 

Outside the court house Eddie Hughes waited for 
him with the limousine, impassive, dead to his sur¬ 
roundings, seemingly, yet seeing everything that might 
affect him or his master in any way. The afternoon 
had drawn to a close with the ending of the inquiry 
into the death of Matthew Masterson and the streets 
were rapidly filling with the advance guard of the 
homeward bound workers. 

Above the boom of the great city downtown, above 
the noise and the crash of human industry, loomed the 
stark, silent shaft of the Woolworth Building, dwarfing 
everything in its vicinity, making the scurrying humans 
resemble the little ants which they really were, showing 
by the mere fact of its being how small human lives 
and human affairs were. It was a magnificent gesture 
of superiority, reflected Val, as he stepped towards his 
car. 

‘‘Good afternoon, Mr. Pomeroy,’’ said a sibilant 
voice at his elbow, ingratiatingly close. 

Val whirled. He disliked that voice even before he 
saw the speaker, even before he recognized him. 

It was the heavy, sinister appearing, armless man of 
unpleasant memory. He lounged, as Val had seen him 
before, his hands in his pockets, bulking huge over 
everybody in the neighborhood but Val, who was rather 
something of a human monolith himself. He must 
have weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds, 
yet he was not stocky—^he was built in proportion 
to his height, and he carried his weight with the grace¬ 
ful ease of a mountain cat, swinging easily on his toes.< 

On the left side of his face, extending across his 


“KEEP AWAY FROM THAT GIRL!” 79 


forehead and to the roots of his hair was an ugly scar, 
slightly red, looking a little like a jagged streak of 
lightning which impresses itself on the vision in the 
fraction of a second before it disappears. He was 
dressed well and quietly, in the best of taste, and his 
voice, if unpleasant, was soft and well bred. The pupils 
of his eyes were little more than pinpoints, and the 
small lines around the corners of his mouth indicated^ 
a hard, determined, unscrupulous disposition, a will 
that would stop at nothing, that would consider no 
means too terrible for a desired end. All this Val 
noticed in an instant, before replying as he halted, one 
foot on the step of his car. A dangerous man, he re¬ 
marked to himself. Yet how could a man with no hands 
be dangerous physically? he argued with himself. Val 
did not know, but he felt that it was possible. He 
was not squeamish, yet there was a physical repulsion 
produced in him vaguely by this man—the same sort 
of electric repulsion that cats produced in Val—a feel¬ 
ing of potential treachery. 

Val decided that his age was somewhere between forty 
and forty-five or -six, yet he had the athletic bearing of 
a younger man, the upright shoulders and languid 
strength of an athlete in condition—or a jaguar, lazy 
with sleep, in the daytime. That was it—the cat fam¬ 
ily. Val definitely placed him now; the suggestion of 
the cat was in him, with all the cruelly latent strength 
and all the treachery of the cat. 

‘T beg your pardon?’^ he said coldly, a note of in¬ 
quiry in his well modulated voice. “I haven’t the 
honor- 

“I know you haven’t, my young friend,” broke in the 
older man, a little patronizingly, it seemed to Val.i 
“You have seen me before, however, and it- 




80 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Yes, so I have,’’ said Val. “Twice before-” 

“Once,” corrected the man with no hands. 

“No, twice—once in my bedroom-” 

“Surely you’re mistaken,” interrupted the man who 
had no hands, suavely, but Val noticed a slight con¬ 
traction of his eyes. “I have never had the pleasure 
of visiting you.” 

Val shrugged his shoulders. “It’s of no conse¬ 
quence,” he put in. “You have something to say to 
me.?” He looked at him inquiringly. 

“If you don’t mind,” said the other. “It won’t take 
you a minute.” 

“Well, I’m on my way uptown,” offered Val. “If 
you’ll ride up with me-” 

“That’ll be fine,” smiled the older man. 

They stepped into the car. “Home, Eddie,” called 
out Val, and the car slid out into midstreet and hummed 
on its way. 

They sat shoulder to shoulder, strangely and con¬ 
strainedly silent for a few moments. As for Val, he 
had nothing to say to this man until he had spoken to 
Miss Pomeroy and knew what relationship there was 
between them. He did not know how this deformed 
man came into this plot, anyway. The other, on his 
part, seemed a bit reluctant to begin the conversation. 
There was something on his mind—that was evident 
enough; it did not appear easy to say it, however. 

The limousine swung up Lafayette Street and 
joined a home-going stream of automobiles that must 
have included nearly every car in New York. From 
all points east, west and south, and from half a dozen 
diagonal intersecting streets they added themselves 
to the live stream, noisy, a grating of innumerable 





“KEEP AWAY FROM THAT GIRL!^’ 81 


brakes, squeaking of thousands of springs and joints, 
braying and shrilling of horns— 

“By Jove!’’ said a calm voice at Val’s elbow, “you 
would think they cost a nickel apiece.” Val nodded, 

“You were saying-” he began tentatively, turn¬ 

ing to his companion. 

“That I had something to say to you,” completed the 
other. “Well, I have. It’s about Miss Pomeroy—and 
things connected with her. Through a curious series 
of events, Mr. Morley, you have—to a certain extent 
—been drawn into matters concerning Miss Pomeroy— 
and myself. These affairs can be of no interest to 
you-” 

“You’re impertinent, sir,” interrupted Val, turning 
and looking at his companion squarely. The other met 
his eye, gaze for gaze. 

“You wouldn’t say so, if you knew the circumstances. 
But I am not here to discuss them with you. You 
have seen Miss Pomeroy—I know you are to see her 
again.” He paused for a moment. 

“What if I am?” queried Val, calmly. “I’m not in 
the habit of permitting strangers to censor my calling 
list. You- 

“Only this,” went on the man who had no hands 
calmly. “It would not be advisable for you to keep 
up your acquaintance with Miss Pomeroy, or to see 
her again. It will be well for you to withdraw from 
all the affairs surrounding her-” 

“Are you threatening me?” Val asked this softly, 
but his tone was of ice, cold and brittle. 

The other took his hands from his pockets—^his 
stumps, rather, and held them up in front of him, 
misshapen and grotesque. 

“Nonsense,” he burst out. “How can I, a helpless 





82 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


cripple, threaten you? You see . . he regarded his 
hands, and was silent for a moment or two. 

“Then just what do you mean by-” 

“Exactly what I said. You are a stranger to Miss 
Pomeroy—it would be well for you to remain a 
stranger, and not to mix into affairs that do not con¬ 
cern you in any way.” 

“Is this a warning?” asked Val. 

The other shrugged his shoulders. “It is anything 
you choose to make it, my young friend.” 

“And if I choose to disregard it-” 

“Well, we shall see what we shall see, in that event. 
You are young and healthy—^why not remain that 
way?” He looked at him significantly, his scar glow¬ 
ing in the semi-darkness of the car like a phosphorous 
gash in his evil face. Val was silent—he did not choose 
to answer him, and after a time the man went on. 

“You will find it best to take my—advice,” he sibi¬ 
lated above the noise of the motor. “And now, if I may 
leave you-” 

“Stop on the corner, Eddie,” directed Val. The car 
grated to a halt. 

Val pushed the door open. “Thank you for your 
advice,” he remarked calmly. ^‘When I feel in need of 
any more I’ll let you know. I expect to see Miss Pome¬ 
roy to-night,” he informed him gratuitously. There 
was no necessity for telling him this, but Val shrewdly 
suspected that he already knew, so there was no harm 
in the parting shot. 

The other shrugged his shoulders again. 

“Ah, well, youth . . .” he said, almost as though he 
were thinking aloud. He stood on the curb and bowed 
his thanks in a courtly manner as the car swung off 
on its way uptown. 





XI 


DINNER, AND A BIT OE INFORMATION 

More food for thought. It was beginning to look 
to Val as though this man, who was in this business so 
mysteriously and so unexplainedly, was to be a storm 
center around which the affair revolved. He had made 
it plain that VaPs presence in any way was unwelcome; 
there had even been a veiled threat, if he continued his 
attentions to Miss Pomeroy. 

Why did the man who had no hands desire him to 
keep away? Why was it so important that he had 
gone to the trouble personally to warn him? And now 
that he knew Val suspected him of having been in his 
room and stolen the books from him, undoubtedly he 
knew that Val, in his mind, implicated him in the mur¬ 
der of the bookseller, for there the books had been the 
only things taken, also—the books sold by Miss Pome¬ 
roy. That being the case he would from now on, be¬ 
yond peradventure of a doubt, consider Val as more 
than a rival for the attention of Miss Pomeroy, if in¬ 
deed they were rivals. Probably, hoped Val, he would 
consider him as rather a dangerous enemy. That was 
good; hp would rather have this man an open enemy 
than a lukewarm acquaintance, rather a final finish 
fight with him than continual skirmishing and veiled at¬ 
tacks. One got somewhere by a fight—either one was 
victorious or he lost; either the spoils of victory were 

83 


84 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


his or the losses of defeat. In either event he could 
know where he stood. 

In a ferment of imagination and anticipation he 
lounged in Peacock Alley and waited for the coming 
of the girl with the burnished copper hair. 

Half a dozen times he consulted his watch. It did 
not seem to hasten her arrival in the least. But then, 
he was a bit early. If you have an appointment with 
a lady at seven thirty it is absurd to expect her there 
at seven twenty. He told himself this and contained 
his impatience as well as he could. It puzzled him a 
little too, to feel as he did about this girl. He had 
known women in his life, yet never had he known one 
to whom he reacted in this curious manner. It seemed 
to him as though the very fact of her being on the same 
earth with him touched some vibrant chord in his na¬ 
ture that echoed throughout his whole being. He could 
have told himself, of course, that he was in love—but 
does one fall in love with a woman whom he has seen 
for perhaps less than ten minutes in his whole life? 

The answer to that is yes, as he admitted after a few 
moments’ reflection. It would have been yes if the time 
had been ten seconds—or ten centuries—or even if he 
had never seen her. It was enough that, somewhere on 
this earth, was a woman like Jessica Pomeroy—^he 
did not have to see her, or know her; she was simply the 
incarnation of an unconscious ideal he had been build¬ 
ing up in his mind, an ideal he had created without 
knowing it, and here suddenly she had come to life like 
Galatea and he realized of a sudden that he had made 
her. She was everything he had pictured to himself— 
and suddenly she stepped down from her pedestal and 
became Jessica Pomeroy, who was to meet him here in 
a few minutes. 


DINNER, AND A BIT OF INFORMATION 85 


With this, he began to wonder whether she really 
would meet him; whether she would not change her 
mind and decide that, after all, it was best not to see 
him now. This produced in him no feeling of trepida¬ 
tion because he would have gone to her if she had not 
come to him—if she did not come to-night he would go 
to her apartment and all the world could not stop him. 
If she did not— 

He rose hastily, because at this moment he caught a 
glimpse of her at the end of the long corridor, halting 
in slight uncertainty. The evening had turned chilly 
with the first approach of autumn, and she wore a blue 
and gold wrap above the furry collar of which her 
head, encased in a lacy something, peeped like a fresh 
field flower. He hastened down the room to meet her 
and she stood stock still to await his approach. 

^‘Am I late, dear benefactor?’’ she asked, extending 
her hand to him. He bent above it and kissed the very 
tips of her tiny fingers—a trick he had learned in 
Europe and which seemed perfectly apropos when he 
did it. 

‘‘You will always seem late when I wait for you. Miss 
Pomeroy,” he remarked, smiling. “The time will al¬ 
ways be long-” 

“Don’t fire all your guns so early in the evening,” 
she replied. “You will do better to keep some of them 
in reserve for later, Mr. Morley.” 

“I don’t have to,” he came back. “I’ll make up bet¬ 
ter ones as we go along.” 

“I’m sure this is perfectly improper—dining with a 
man whom I have never actually met, isn’t it?” she 
appealed to him. 

He nodded pleasantly. “It is.” 

“Isn’t that fine!” she ejaculated. 



86 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

‘‘Impropriety becomes the height of respectability 
when you indulge in it, Miss Pomeroy,” he fired back. 
“Shall we go to the dining room?” 

She nodded. “Please. I"m horribly and vulgarly 
hungry—I suppose you think I ought to live on hum¬ 
mingbirds’ wings and nightingales’ tongues—to judge 
from the things you say to me; I don’t really, though,” 
she confided to him in a low tone. 

“No?” he asked, as though shocked that anything 
substantial in the way of food should appeal to her. 
“You astound me.” 

“No,” she said. “I’m going to deal out death and 
destruction to oysters, filet mignon, with dozens of 
different kinds of vegetables and salad, ice cream-” 

“That’s fine; at least you know what you want. 
Most women don’t seem to have the least idea of what 
they want to eat when they dine with a man. It’s a, 
relief to come across one who knows her own mind— 
after all, your stomach—if I may be so presumptuous 
to suppose you have such a thing,” he smiled, “is a very 
personal matter.” 

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” She smiled at him 
gently, and he took careful note of the dimples the 
smile produced in her cheeks, “And yet, I don’t think 
we ought to stand here and discuss my—er—^internal 
organs in such an offhand way, do you?” 

“Er—well—perhaps not. We’ll come to that later, 
perhaps.” He told her this gravely. 

At the door of the dining room they were met by a 
squad of officials, respectful and obsequious, prominent 
among whom were the head waiter and the manager. 
The Morley name was a potent factor where it was 
known, which accounted for the ceremonial parade— 
almost like a coronation procession—that proceeded 



DINNER, AND A BIT OF INFORMATION 87 

through the dining room to a sheltered alcove where a 
table laid for two, decorated with just the proper 
flowers, awaited them. 

“You must feel like a feudal baron,” she whispered 
to him, “to whom everything comes as a matter of 
right.” 

He smiled. “I feel like an animated National Bank, 
to tell you the truth.” 

“Yet money has its uses,” she smiled, when they were 
seated. 

He nodded. “So IVe been led to believe,” he said. 
‘T don’t know, really—I’ve always had it, you know— 
so perhaps I don’t actually realize what it means. 
There are times when I’ve found it to be more of a 
disadvantage than—^but we’d better order first and 
talk later. I’m sure you must be perfectly starved.” 

“I am,” she admitted. “Don’t forget the oysters.” 

They chatted idly for awhile, until the first part of 
the dinner was finally served. It made little difference 
to Val what they talked about—rather, what she talked 
about. It was enough for him that he heard her voice; 
that he was sitting opposite her at table, that they were 
eating together, living a small fraction of their lives 
together, with each other. Externals hardly mattered; 
here was his woman—and at present she was with him 
to the exclusion of the whole world. 

Something of what he was thinking must have flashed 
into her mind like the ghost of a shadow—it must have 
been as intangible and as nebulous as that, because Val 
himself had not realized concretely the thoughts that 
were running through his mind. She looked at him,^ 
serious for perhaps the first time that evening—an ap¬ 
praising glance, a glance that took in every part of 
him, that seemed to dissect him, almost; her glance at 


88 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


him—for it was but during the merest part of a second 
that she looked at him frankly, was almost calculat- 
ingly cold in its process of weighing this man who sat 
opposite her. For that instant it almost seemed as 
though she looked at him not as a man who was there 
because he was interested in her, but as a tool that a 
workman finds ready to his hand, a sword a soldier 
finds conveniently placed so that he can use it. 

“Curious that we should meet like this, isn^t it?’^ 
She looked at him with frank approval now—he had 
been weighed in that instant. “I mean,” she went on 
in a small sudden panic, afraid that it would seem to 
him that their juxtaposition was appearing very fateful 
and important in her eyes, “it’s funny how people meet, 
isn’t it. Just an accident—and there you are.” 

He did not answer for an instant, while he bit into 
an olive with his fine, even white teeth. 

“All meetings are like that,” he said when he did 
break the silence. “People meet—they must meet some 
way—^by the most trivial sort of chances, by the most 
ordinary sort of accidents. When you look back on it 
later you say that it is curious you meet by just such 
an accident or chance—^but if you look back on any 
acquaintance you have you will find it was an ordinary 
accident that brought you together—just the chance of 
your having been somewhere together—at the same 
time—and somebody there to introduce you, perhaps; 
life is made up of just such ‘accidents’—we go rushing 
along in our mad careers, like funny, busy little bugs, 
until, by chance, we bunk into each other—which is the 
first time we ever really haul off and take a good 
square look. And then we say we met by accident, and 
we don’t realize that an accident is the only way we can 
ever meet. Every formal introduction is an accident. 


DINNER, AND A BIT OF INFORMATION 89 


isn’t it? The accident of you all being there at that 
time- 

“Sometimes we’re there purposely, Mr. Pomeroy, 
aren’t we?” He had to smile at this. 

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “As when we spend a 
couple of days hunting up the owner of a name in a 
bible—^but don’t forget that the accident of our meet¬ 
ing came before that—in the bookstore.” He was 
silent for a moment or two after that, because both 
of them suddenly realized that there was much to be 
explained; the thought of the bookstore brought that 
back. 

Her face had become sober and serious again, reflec¬ 
tive, almost—as one who has been brought back to 
business with a sharp turn. 

“I had made up my mind to be bright and happy for 
once, this evening,” she said;—“I was going to forget 
about—oh, about things, for awhile—^pretend I haven’t 
anything to worry about.” 

“Acting, eh,” he commented. She nodded her head 
quickly. 

“That’s just it^—you know, I want to go on the 
stage—I have to, in fact; got to make a living some 
way; that’s why I was holding on to all these expensive 
clothes when I could have sold them and-” 

“You know. Miss Pomeroy,” he said seriously, “you 
don’t have to tell me this unless you want to—unless it 
relieves your mind to have somebody to talk to. I’m 
not asking you, mind.” 

“Oh, I know—but I haven’t anybody to tell things 
to,” she said, a little troubled. “Perhaps, if I had a 

girl friend-” she was silent for a moment. “But 

even girl friends, you know, don’t always quite answer 
the purpose. There’s nothing in the world so satisfy- 





90 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


ing to a woman as a man friend—a real friend with 
whom she can talk out her troubles and to whom- 

“I hope that you will be able to feel that I’m such 
a friend, Miss Pomeroy,” he broke in, 

“That’s the singular part of it, don’t you know,” 
she said smiling. “I’ve felt —that you were from the 
moment I saw you at my apartment—even before you 
spoke a word.” He smiled, much gratified. 

This was a discerning girl, he decided. She knew a 
regular fellow when she saw one. A real he-man! One 
of nature’s noblemen! True-blue. No, he was not 
conceited nor egotistical beyond the ordinary run of 
males—^when you consider that all of them are like 
that. Although a man would never admit that he 
thinks such thoughts as the above, yet all of them do. 
There are few men who don’t consider that they are the 
salt of the earth and nature’s noblemen—and there are 
none who would not be grateful to a woman for being 
discerning enough to perceive that important fact. 

“I suppose I ought to begin at the beginning,” she 
said, and he nodded. “Though we’re having a peep at 
the end right now- 

“The way some women read a book, eh.?” be com¬ 
mented. 

“Well, not all. Some don’t read—they live. The 
beginning,” she went on, “is my father. Probably you 
know of him—he was a racing man. That is, he bred 
horses, and he raced them—going around the country 
to wherever there was a meet. You can’t have a home 
■—^in the true sense of the word—when your only living 
relative is always off somewhere at the other end of 
the country, so we lived, when we weren’t separated, in 
a small apartment hotel here in the city. We had a 
place in Virginia, too, near Hampton—but the build- 




DINNER, AND A BIT OF INFORMATION 91 

ings are about ready to cave in and nobody has lived 
there for twenty years—^not since my mother died 
there. The house itself has been locked up, although 
we stayed a few times at one of the cottages on the 
property, on account of father’s stable being there, 
and his horses. He had a kind of a race track there 
where there used to be try-outs. 

“I spent aU of my girlhood and most of my young 
womanhood in boarding and finishing schools and I 
only came home for good a few months before my 
father’s death last year. I never was very intimate 
with my father—in fact, I don’t think I saw enough 
of him to become intimate with him. He was a peculiar 
sort—that is, much different from most people. He 
came into a large fortune when he attained his ma¬ 
jority—in Virginia. He turned it all into cash, pre¬ 
paratory to making an investment, and placed it all in 
the bank. 

“The details of the investment took two .or three 
months to complete. In the meantime, the bank failed. 
Creditors received about two cents on the dollar—it 
completely wiped out my father’s fortune. Well, he 
made two or three more before he was through—^but, 
as I told you, he never trusted banks after that, and 
he always kept his money and his valuable papers— 
stocks and bonds—hidden away or on his person. 
More than once he carried over a hundred thousand 
dollars with him in large bills, to my knowledge. He 
always had many thousands of dollars with him. 

“Well, as I say, he recouped. He always loved 
horses, so I suppose it was perfectly natural to go in 
for them as a business. At one time it was said that 
he had the largest blooded stable in America. A few 
months before he died he turned it all into cash, keep- 


92 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


ing only the Virginia estate, and retired from the busi¬ 
ness. I did not see him at his death—I was traveling 
in Europe with a companion; he died suddenly, from a 
stroke of apoplexy, lapsing into unconsciousness and 
regaining consciousness only a few seconds before he 
died. Ignace Teck was with him. He- 

‘Tgnace Teck?” queried Val. “Who is he?” 

“You’ve seen him—the man who called at my place 
yesterday when you were there. He-” 

“The man without hands ?” 

She nodded. “The man without hands—I didn’t 
know you saw that. He usually keeps his hands in his 
pockets when strangers are present.” 

She was silent for a moment, unaccountably. So 
was Val—he was wondering who this Ignace Teck was, 
with his hard, sinister countenance, his small, cruelly 
calculating eyes. She played with a crumb on the 
table, the long lashes fringing her eyes like Willow at 
the edge of a pond, but he noticed that her slender 
hand trembled just a little as her fingers continued 
their aimless playing. Evidently there was a great 
deal about this man for one to know, thought Val. 
Ignace Teck! The very name sounded ominous. He 
broke the silence at last, seeing that if he did not there 
was scarcely any telling when she would resume—and 
he was interested in her recital—interested in the liquid 
cadences of her voice. 

^^Just who is this man?” he asked finally, making his 
voice as careless as possible. “Where does he come 
into this thing, anyway?” 

Her hands ceased their playing with the bread¬ 
crumbs and her eyes no longer shaded by the lashes, 
looked directly into his for a brief instant. Then, 
slowly, in a voice as hard as flint, and as dry as a 
country road in summer, she answered him briefly. 

“He is my fiance,” she said. 




XII 


THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 

The ancient Greeks had a word for it— peripetia. 
In dramatic usage of the present day it has become 
peripety. When the man who has been suspected of 
the murder all through three acts suddenly, at the end 
of the play, turns out to be the hero-detective in dis¬ 
guise who finds the real girl and marries the murderer 
—er—finds the real murderer and marries the girl— 
or when the poor suitor, who has been scorned by the 
family because of his poverty, suddenly turns out to 
be William Q. Rockerbilt, the richest man in the world 
—or when the supposed hero suddenly is unmasked as 
a villain of the deepest dye—that is a peripety, the 
sudden, surprising reversal of fortune that sends you 
home happy at eleven o’clock, making you forget about 
the eight eighty you had to pay for the tickets. The 
reversal must be sudden and unexpected, but it can be 
in either direction, happy or horrible, 

Val was at this instant the center point of a 
peripety, and it is quite unnecessary, perhaps, to state 
in which direction the thing worked. It was horrible. 
In fact, he was peripettied almost into a dazed uncon¬ 
sciousness by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the 
thing. Of course, he had vaguely supposed that so 
lovely a girl would have masculine affiliations of one 
kind or another—he knew all men were not blind. But 
this man! Really, you know, it was a bit thick. He 

93 


94 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


lived an eternity or two in Purgatory in the instant or 
two that followed the moment when old Battling Peri¬ 
petia hauled off and swung his right to the jaw. 

He just simply sat there and watched the room go 
round and round, the while he fought for his breath. 
Through the haze that was in front of his eyes he heard 
her voice, and suddenly he was sitting quietly in front 
of Jessica Pomeroy in the restaurant, and he was cold 
and calm. It had lasted but an instant, but he had 
learned what it was to suffer as he had never suffered 
in the trenches. When love hits a man of Val’s type 
the naked little rascal has a haymaker in either mitt— 
and he had landed fair and square on Val. 

‘‘Does that surprise you.^” she was saying, calmly. 
A shade of feeling flickered through her expressive eyes 
before she shaded them again with her silken lashes; he 
was sure of that. Ah, well, she wasn’t married yet. 
That was something. 

“Yes, a little, of course—from what I know of 
him-” he began. 

“You mean from what you suspect of him,” she cor¬ 
rected him, and he thought her tone was a trifle stiff 
and cold; unnecessarily so, it seemed to him. 

“Well, suspect, then,” he admitted. “How did he 
lose his hands .^” he asked. 

“He saved my life when I was a six year old child,” 
she enlightened him. “I had fallen in front of a run¬ 
away horse dragging a heavy, loaded truck. He 
jumped in front and threw me aside, but lost his bal¬ 
ance before he could quite jump aside himself—he fell 
—^both hands together, you know, in front of him—the 
horse missed him but the terribly heavy wheels of the 
truck went over his hands, crushing them. They had 
to be amputated.” She was silent again, and he did 



THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 95 

not speak, letting this sink in. There was more to this 
than he had thought. 

He had thought for a moment that perhaps this 
cripple had so frightened her that ... But it was 
more than that, he saw. There was a debt of grati¬ 
tude to be paid, and she was paying it with the only 
thing she had—herself. It was a big price—too big, 
he decided. A shade of this must have flickered across 
his mobile countenance, because she spoke to his un¬ 
uttered thought. 

‘‘Well, of course, it is partly, gratitude—it would 
have to be,’^ she told him frankly. “There are other 
things, though . . . Things I cannot speak to you 
about. He was working for my father then—sort of 
an assistant manager of . the stables, you know. My 
father kept him on all these years, until his death, as 
a confidential man—he often said he owed him more 
than he could ever repay. I think it became a sort of 
obsession with him in his last days, because he made 
me promise to marry Ignace.’^ 

“And you were willing to- 

“I had to,’’ she said. “I would have done anything 
for my father—even marry Ignace Teck. Even 
though-” 

“Even though you loathe him and are afraid of 
him.^” he asked. 

She nodded. “I am afraid of him—I don’t know 
why I should tell you all this, Mr. Morley—there is 
something, about him, an intimation of cruelty—I know 
he’s unscrupulous and hard. He revolts me, at times 
—and then at other times he is a charming gentleman 
and I could almost bring myself to like him. But he’s 
a man who will go to any lengths to accomplish his 
ends. Yet I’ll marry him—eventually,” she said. 




96 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


They lapsed into silence for a brief moment. She went 
on, then. 

“But to get back to the storyshe said. “After my 
father’s death we could discover no trace of his money 
or other personal property. There must have been a 
great deal of it, because he had no debts—^he paid 
everything cash—and he had just sold his stables. 
Ignace thought there must have been half a million 
dollars, somewhere.” 

“Do you think so?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she said. “Somewhere, my father has hid¬ 
den away a great deal of money. As I said, he was a 
trifle queer in his last years—in fact, I think that on 
the subject of Ignace Teck and also on the subject of 
his money, he was unbalanced. He always had an idea 
that people wanted to take it from him—and he hid 
it in the most peculiar places; you know, like that ten 
thousand dollar bill you found. But the great bulk of 
it has not been uncovered, although we have looked al¬ 
most everywhere. Frankly, I think it’s the money 
Ignace is after, more than he is desirous of marrying 
me, even. He and his gang- 

“His gang?” 

^‘He’s an assistant district leader on the east side— 
he lives there in a shabby tenement when he’s in town— 
and he has men from the district who would do any¬ 
thing for him—^commit robbery—murder, even-” 

Val nodded his head. “Then you think poor old Mat 
Masterson-” 

“Probably,” she acquiesced. “Oh, it is horrible to 
think of it!” she exclaimed. A shudder passed through 
her and her face grew white as death as the matter 
was recalled to her mind. “The bookseller had what 
Ignace wanted, so-” 






THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 97 

‘‘The books!” broke in Val. “Why was it so im¬ 
portant for him to get the books back?” 

“ThaUs what I don’t know,” she shook her head. 
“Perhaps he thinks they contain some clue to where 
the money is—but if that is so, why did he not take 
them long ago—I had them with me all that time?” 

“Maybe it just occurred to him?” suggested Val. 
She nodded. 

“You know, I was absolutely broke when you came 
in with that ten thousand dollars,” she said. “You 
see, father left practically nothing—as far as we could 
ascertain. I had to move out from the hotel where 
we lived—though he wanted me to stay there—and 
take a cheaper place. My cash got lower and lower. I 
could have got money from Ignace, but I wouldn’t take 
any of his money, of course. At last I went really 
bankrupt,” she smiled, “and there was nothing in the 
house for Elizabeth and me to eat. Elizabeth is the 
old woman who answered the door for you—she’s been 
with us for years, and she’s staying on, though she 
knows I have no money to pay her. I would have tried 
to sell some of my expensive clothes and furs,” she 
said, “but I’m trying to get on the stage and a ward¬ 
robe is a very handy thing to have. So I thought I’d 
get a little for the books—they’ve been around the 
house a long time and they really were a nuisance, you 
know. We never had much in the way of books in the 
house, because I was away all the time and my father 
was not much of a reader. So I had no bookcase, and 
they were in the way. I thought it would be a good 
time to get rid of them—and so stall Ignace off a 
little while longer—you see,” she said naively; “he 
wanted me to marry him right away, and if I was 
starving I would have had to do it. And then you 


98 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


came along with that ten thousand dollars like a bolt 
from the blue—it put a different aspect on life en¬ 
tirely. I can pay off the mortgage.” 

“What mortgage.?” he inquired. 

^‘On our Virginia place. A long time ago, when my 
father had some legal trouble, he thought that if he 
lost the case they might take away his property, so 
he protected the Virginia place by a mortgage for 
seven thousand dollars which he gave to Ignace Teck 
—it’s really worth many times that, you know. Now 
Ignace is foreclosing the mortgage—not because he 
wants the place so badly, but because he always had an 
idea that dad’s money was hidden somewhere down 
there; there are thousands of acres on the estate, and 
there’s lots of room for it. He’s getting the idea that 
I don’t want to marry him, and he figures that if he 
owns the Virginia estate he can shut me out of it and 
look for the money at his leisure. The action isn’t 
finished yet—^which.is why you were so much of a god¬ 
send. I’ve already sent enough money down to myji 
lawyers in Norfolk to fix the matter up.” 

“But surely you don’t intend to marry this man.?” 
inquired Val, leaning forward. 

“Why not.?” she answered coolly. “I promised to.” 
It was a statement of fact, as though there were no 
other course, yet Val was glad to see the flush of color 
that had come up into her cheeks and the emotion that 
caused her to veil her eyes once more. 

“Well,” he said slowly and deliberately, ‘%e’s a 
murderer, you know.” 

She paled at this, though she had probably thought 
on the matter many times since it had first occurred 
to her. But she answered coldly. 


THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 99 

don’t know that he is,” she said, with a womanly 
inconsistence. 

‘‘But if you knew-” he persisted. 

“If I knew . . she turned away from him and 
seemed to be peering into the face of the future. It 
was as though he was not there, but her words were 
like a caress in their soft modulation, like a song dying 
down the wind. “If I knew . . .” 

“Where does he live ?” he asked abruptly. 

She mentioned a number on the East Side. “Why 
do you want to know.^” she asked quickly, as though 
repenting that she had given him this information. 
He made a mental note of the number before answering. 
“Well, I thought that if I could bring you proof that 

he had the books you might be willing to believe-” 

She interrupted him with a note of alarm in her 
voice. “Oh, I’m sorry I told you where he lives—I 
shouldn’t have done that! You mustn’t go there, Mr. 

Morley! It would be terrible-” 

“But why?” he asked. “Surely I cannot be hurt 

by a man with no hands. Even if he did find me-” 

“It isn’t he, you know. It’s the gangsters he has 
around him. They would do anything—oh, you have 

no idea what a vicious crew they are. Why, if- 

“Well, don’t worry,” soothed Val, pleased and flat¬ 
tered that she should be alarmed over the question of 
his comparative safety, “Why, there is no reason 
under the sun-” 

“Miss Pomeroy?” questioned an utterly respectful 
voice at his elbow. They both looked up, and until 
that moment they had not realized how completely ab¬ 
sorbed they had been in one another. It had been as 
though they were in some private place, as though 







100 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


nobody else in the world existed. They, each of them, 
actually had to wrench away their gaze. 

“I have a note for you, if you will pardon me,” 
continued the head waiter, looking at Miss Pomeroy. 
“A boy delivered it and told me it was important.” 

He handed her the note. She took it, thanking him 
mechanically, and he withdrew, rubbing his hands in 
cadence one over the other. 

With an apology to Val she ripped open the en¬ 
velope and read the missive swiftly; her face became 
pale as ashes and her breath came more quickly in the 
tremor of her alarmed emotions. He noticed these 
symptoms of fright as she read, and it was difficult 
to resist the feeling that the proper move for him was 
to take her in his arms and quiet and soothe her. If 
it had not been a public place. . . . 

^Ts it as bad as that-f^” he asked softly. 

^‘Oh, I must go at once—it^s important I” she ejac¬ 
ulated. ‘Tt^s from-” 

^‘Can you tell me what it’s about.?” he inquired. ‘‘Of 
course, if there’s anything I can-” 

“No, I think there’s nothing you can do, Mr. 
Morley,” she broke in. “I—I think I can’t tell you— 
now—what it’s all about, but I must go at once.” 
They both rose. 

“Perhaps I can help you,” he persisted. “You know, 
I would like nothing better than-” 

“You’re very good, Mr. Morley, but I can’t call 
upon you in this particular case. It’s—it’s all right— 
there’s no help needed. I was foolish to be so alarmed. 
It’s from Ignace, and he’s at my house—I must go 
back at once.” 

He stepped up close to her, so close that they al- 





THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 101 

most touched, where he towered above her like a good 
natured rock. 

“I want you to promise me, Miss Pomeroy, that if 
you need assistance of any kind, you will call upon me. 

Any time of the day or night, any place- 

“Thank you so much, Mr, Morley,’^ she breathed 
softly. “It will be good to know that. I promise. 

You’ll come any time-” 

“All you have to do is send for me. Miss Pomeroy, 
ril break all records coming to you. Now, let me 
send you home in my car—it’s waiting outside.” 

“No, you had better call a taxi for me,” she decided, 
shaking her head dubiously. “I think it would be 
wiser for neither you nor your car to be seen near my 
apartment for awhile.” 




xin 


THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 

For a space Val sat in the onyx and gold lobby of 
the Giltmore and consumed numerous cigarettes, the 
while he decided on his course of action. For action 
it had to be; he was not the man to take a passive part 
in the melodrama that was wrapping itself around the 
woman he loved. Here was love and adventure. 

He knew that Jessica Pomeroy was determined on 
her course; he could see that she had a high sense of 
duty and obligation—and if her duty and her sense 
of obligation led her even to the point of marrying the 
loathsome object that had no hands, why, she would do 
it. He knew that. It was not a question of whether 
she cared for him, Valentine Morley. How could a 
perfect creature like Jessica Pomeroy care for an 
ordinary man like him.f* 

But he would make her care! And the first way to 
do that was to release her from her assumed obligation 
to marry this Ignace Teck. She had intimated that 
if it was proved to her that he had murdered Mat 
Masterson she would reconsider her determination— 
she would not be bound to marry a murderer. But 
how to prove that? 

He considered this for a short time and it came to 
him suddenly. Why, what a fool he had been! By 
the books, of course. 


102 


THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


103 


I can find out that he has the books,’’ quoth Val, 
“it stands to reason that he must be implicated in 
the murder of poor old Mat—and it’s a sure thing he 
has ’em.” He was thankful that he had found out 
his address from Miss Pomeroy. That would help. If 
he had the books they were very probably in his apart¬ 
ment on the East Side. 

There, then, was where Val must look. There was 
another important reason for getting those books. 
Very possibly there was a clue in them, somehow, to 
the lost wealth of the girl’s father. Otherwise, why 
should Teck be so anxious to get them back that he 
would even commit murder for them.^^ That money 
belonged to Jessica Pomeroy, and Val decided that 
it was up to him to see that she got it. 

Lost treasure! The love of a beautiful woman! 
The dark villainy of an unscrupulous scoundrel! It 
was good to be alive and to be caught up in the swirl 
of this affair, Val’s blood tingled in his veins, and he 
rose hastily, smiling gently. There was no time like 
the present. Ignace Teck, to be sure, was at Jessica’s 
—he called her that privately—home. That being the 
case, what was there to prevent Val from making a raid 
on the handless one’s rooms. Nothing. Teck had 
done that to him, so there was no ethical reason why 
he should not now return the compliment. 

He walked out of the Giltmore and engaged Eddie 
Hughes in conversation. 

“Eddie,” he said, “haven’t we got an automatic or 
two somewhere?” 

Eddie brightened. He nodded. “At home,” he an¬ 
swered laconically. “Whom do you want croaked?” 

“Nobody,” grinned Val. “We might need them for 
protection, though. Let’s go home and get them.” 


104 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


He jumped in. ^‘Hustle,” he shouted. The car 
turned the corner on two wheels and nearly ran down 
a traffic policeman. It was out of sight before the 
policeman had a chance to reach into his pocket and 
pull out a summons. 

‘‘Well, I might be needin’ it fer somewan else,” mut¬ 
tered the guardian of the city’s traffic. He kept it out 
where he could get to it again quickly in case it was 
necessary. 

“I’m going to burgle a little to-night, Eddie, “an¬ 
nounced Val. He was sitting with the driver, in front. 
Eddie looked at him impassively. Nothing that his 
amazing employer said to him startled him. He could 
have announced that he was going to work and it would 
scarcely have shocked the callous, impervious Eddie. , 

“That’s not included in your contract, Eddie, so 
you can stay in the apartment and keep the home fires 
burning until I get back,” he continued. “Not that 
I don’t think the exercise wouldn’t do you some good. 
A little night work, such as I propose-” 

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I decline to stay 
home,” interrupted Eddie. “If you think that I’m 
going to slave my life away for you and then, when 
there is a chance for a little recreation, be left at home 
like a cook, why-” 

“You’re waxing impertinent, Edward,” said Val 
severely. “I really ought to discharge you. Your 
recommendations said nothing about your being a good 
burglar. How do I know that you’re any good at the 
job—this is something that requires experience. You 
can get a good chauffeur or valet anywhere, but where 
can you get an efficient burglar Eddie, have you ever 
burgled.?” 

“No, sir,” replied Eddie. “But I’m willing to learn.” 




THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


105 


^‘Ah, my boy, you have struck on the keynote of our 
American life. The reason America has forged ahead 
so fast is because Americans are willing to learn. We 
have no deep rooted prejudices to eradicate—if any¬ 
thing worthwhile comes along, like burgling, or 
pinochle, we are ^willing to learn,’ ” he went on grow¬ 
ing expansive. “It is what has made us what we are 
to-day-” 

“What are we to-day, sir?” asked Eddie mildly. 
Val turned and looked at him in astonishment. 

“Why, we are—er—^we are—damn it! Eddie, don’t 
you read your history and your newspapers. Why, 
we are—Eddie, I sincerely trust you are not being 
insolent enough to poke fun at me or at our 
institutions.” 

“No, sir,” replied Eddie. “About this—er—burg¬ 
ling job, then, we can consider that I am going along, 
sir, I take it?” He noted the look of indecision in 
Val’s face, the while he missed a truck by an inch. Val 
saw no particular reason for exposing Eddie Hughes 
to whatever dangers there were attending this job. 
“Of course,” went on Eddie, “if you refuse, and thus 
make it necessary for me to notify the police of your - 
er—midnight exercise, why, it will be-” 

“Pinked!” ejaculated Val. “I’ll come down. Eddie, 
you’re one of us to-night. But if you get killed, don’t 
blame me.” 

“I won’t, sir,” said Eddie. 

‘‘Ah—very good, Eddie! Now that you’re a mem¬ 
ber of the party. I’ll tell you what I propose to do.” 

He told and Eddie listened without comment. 

“How does it look to you?” he inquired at the con¬ 
clusion of the recital of his proposed deeds. 

“All right, sir,” returned his man. “Except that it 




106 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

seems to me that it would be better if we went in a 
taxicab, because this big car is sure to attract atten¬ 
tion if we leave it standing for any length of time in 
that East Side street. And then, we can have the cab 
and the chauffeur waiting for us with the engine run¬ 
ning, so that we can get away on the jump when we 
come out. We might be in a hurry, sir,” he suggested. 

Val nodded. “You’ve struck twelve, Eddie.” They 
were home now. “Put the car away and get a taxi. 
I’ll go upstairs and get the guns.” 


At about ten thirty that evening a taxicab carrying 
Val and Eddie came to a grinding stop at the corner of 
a small, narrow, ill-smelling alley. 

“Are we there .P” asked Val, popping his head out 
of the door. 

“Dunno,” replied the driver. “I think it’s around 
here somewhere, though. Maybe one of these fellers 
can tell us. Hey!” he called to them. 

A small tough came forward, unshaven, rat faced, 
and sharp, beady eyes that seemed to look in two dif¬ 
ferent directions at once. His derby, which was too 
small for him, a sort of brown bowler, was perched 
perilously on one side of his unkempt hair, and he spat 
viciously into the gutter under the taxicab before 
opening his mouth to speak. 

“Whatcher want?” he asked, eyeing the occupants 
of the taxicab sharply, and then addressing himself 
to them. 

“Can you tell me where 22 Delancey Place is ?” asked 
Val. 

The other looked at him searchingly for an instant. 
“Dis here’s Delancey Place,” he replied. “Yer num- 


THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


107 


ber’s at de other end. What name you lookin^ fer?^ he 
asked, with an assumption of confidential familiarity. 

“Why?” asked Val. 

The other did not meet his direct gaze. He spat 
again, this time on the hub of the taxi’s rear wheel, 
and regarded his marksmanship admiringly for a mo-- 
ment or two before answering. 

“Oh, nothin’,” he said at length. “Just thort I 
might help you, dat’s all.” Val gave him a quarter, 
which he accepted in a dignified manner, much as a 
shopkeeper accepts money for merchandise. He turned 
and went back to lounge with his friends, paying no 
more attention to Val and his party. 

Telling the taxi driver to wait for them there, and 
to be ready to start at an instant’s notice, Val and 
his man proceeded up the alley to number 22, Eddie 
carrying a suitcase in which to take away the books, 
if they found them. Val had his plans made, sketchily. 
They were simply this: To knock on the door. If 
Teck was in, which was not likely, they were to enter 
and by a show of force search his rooms. If he was 
not in, they were to find a way to force their entrance 
into the rooms. That was all. The legality of the» 
proceeding, to say nothing of the danger of it, did not 
bother Val in the least, and it bothered Eddie less. He 
was satisfied, if Val was. If his conscience smote him 
a bit—that is, Val’s conscience, for Eddie had none 
except in Val’s name—he silenced it by the reflection 
that after all, they were his own books and they had 
been stolen from him. As the English say, he was 
merely getting back “a bit of his own.” 

It was a mean looking alley, Helancey Place, and. no 
mistake. Early, comparatively, as it was, the side¬ 
walks of Helancey Place were bare and deserted. With 


108 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


the exception of one lamppost burning bleakly at the 
beginning of the alley, there were no lights. Windows 
were barred and although here and there a shaft of 
yellow light escaped through a ramshackle shutter, it 
did little but accentuate the general gloom and dispirit¬ 
edness of the place. It was a location to take the 
heart out of a man who had no legitimate business 
there—nor did it look, on the other hand, as though 
any one who lived there could have any legitimate 
business. 

They found the house they were looking for at the 
far end; it was a three-story frame house—one of the 
few frame houses still in existence on the East Side. 
There was no front door, though the hinges were still 
there to show that at some happier and far distant 
time there had been such an affair at the entrance. 
The hall yawned blackly before them. 

‘‘Got your flashqueried Val. The other handed 
it to him. “Looks like midnight inside a cow’s belly,” 
commented Val. 

“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie, impassively. 

They entered the house. By working his flashlight 
diligently, Val discovered that there was a door to an 
apartment on each side of the hall. He knocked on 
one of them, loudly. There was no answer. He 
knocked again. There was a sound of moving around, 
and he heard a low, guttural, feminine voice cursing 
wholeheartedly. The door was opened a crack, as 
far as a stout chain would permit. 

“Can you tell me where Teck lives?” asked Val. 

“One flight up, on the left, in the rear,” grunted 
the woman, and banged the door. People evidently 
did not keep their doors open any longer than they 
could help in this neighborhood, meditated Val. Ah, 


THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


109 


well. It occurred to him that if he lived there he 
wouldn’t have kept his door open any longer, either. 

They made their way up the creaking, uncovered 
stairs, with the aid of the invaluable flashlight. A 
musty, filthy smell, the fetid, odorous accumulation of 
many years’ cooking, a Composite smell of perhaps 
thirty years standing, greeted their nostrils. On the 
wall, to the left of the stairs, the plaster had come off 
in great gobs, exposing the bare lath underneath. At 
the head of the stairs, to the left, they found the door 
they were looking for. 

‘‘This must be it, sir,” whispered Eddie. 

“Correct,” whispered Val. He knocked softly. 
There was no answer, as he had expected. 

He knocked again, louder this time. Still no an¬ 
swer. 

“Where’s that cold chisel?” he asked in a whisper. 
Eddie produced it silently and handed it to him. 

“Now for a little plain and fancy burgling,” an¬ 
nounced Val. “A moving picture entitled ‘Breaking 
the Law’ in six parts.” The door did not fit well. 
Probably, at the beginning, many years before, it had 
fitted snugly, but that day was long years agone. It 
was badly warped by now and it was a simple matter 
to find room for the chisel. There was a sharp strain¬ 
ing of wood against iron, a dull rasping sound, another 
push, and the door swung open. 

“If this is the burglar’s art,” said Val, “it’s very 
easy. “They entered the room silently, and the flash¬ 
light showed them that it was a fairly large living 
room, with another smaller room, probably a bedroom, 
on one side. In a moment or two he made certain that 
there was nobody in the apartment. 

He located the gaslight in the center of the room. 


110 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Close the door and pull down the shades, Eddie, and 
I’ll light up so we can have a look around.” Eddie 
did so, and Val lighted the gas. 

They were surprised at the comfort and good taste 
shown in the furnishing of the room. The room they 
had entered was evidently a combined living room and 
library, with deep leather chairs, a reading lamp, a 
walnut library table, and rather fine prints and etch¬ 
ings on the walls. The first thing that struck Val’s 
attention, however, was a bundle of books on the 
library table. Even before he advanced to them he 
knew that they were the ones he was looking for. 

“Ah, we have with us to-day, Eddie, pieces of eight, 
doubloons and Spanish gold, as exemplified in yon 
books—maybe,” he waved his hand to the books. He 
looked them over briefly, perfunctorily. A second 
glance told him that he was correct. 

“Are they the ones?” asked Eddie. Val nodded. 

Eddie opened the suitcase and placed the boolis 
within carefully. “Let’s go.” 

“Right—oh! Let us stagger homeward, my good 
man,” smiled Val. “Sorry we cannot wait until our 
good friend, Iggy Teck, comes back. It would be nice 
to visit him, but-” 

The door opened silently, and four men stood in 
the door, quiet, grim, revolvers leveled. Only one 
spoke. It was the little cross-eyed man who Jxad 
directed them to this address. 

“Reach fer a cloud, men,” he said. “Grab yerself 
a star!” 

“I take it that you mean-” began Val. 

“Damn right, kid!’^ snapped the gangster. “Stick 




THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 111 

’em up—an’ don’t let me have ter tell yer again, 
neither.” 

Slowly Val’s hands went up into the air. “To what 
are we indebted for the honor of this—er—^visitation,” 
lie asked. “You didn’t—er—send up your cards, nor 
were you announced by the butler,” he bantered, spar¬ 
ring for time, but his eyes were contracted to pin¬ 
points and his square jaw had hardened angularly. 

“Never mind all that guff,” ordered the gangster. 
“Stand right where you are and be quiet. Come in 
boys,” he called to the rest of the gang. “Keep them 
,up there, you!” he directed Eddie, who was standing a 
little to the left of Val and had shown signs of being 
tired of the position. “If this here cannon goes off, 
you’re liable ter git an awful headache, t’say nothin’ 
of catchin’ cold account ’er th’ air bein’ let through 
yer.” 

“Just what can I do to oblige you boys.^” asked Val 
pleasantly. “If there is any little thing I can do, any 
little favor, why, just say the word-” 

“Yes, yer kin keep mum an’ move over here till I 
relieves yer of any stray gats yer may have about yer 
poison, git me?” Val nodded, his hands up in the air, 
and half turned to glance at Eddie, who had remained, 
suspiciously quiet and immobile. Their eyes met, and 
in that brief glance he told him to be ready to jump 
for it at an instant’s notice—to hold himself prepared 
for anything. 

The men gathered around them as Val moved for¬ 
ward the center of the room, right under the gas 
jet. He made a motion as though to lower his hands, 

“Keep dem fins up a minit you!” ordered the little 



112 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


unshaven tough sharply. Like lightning Val’s hands 
shot up. He had gauged the distance exactly, and his 
right hand came in contact with the cock of the gas 
jet. With a snap of his fingers he turned it, leaving the 
room in instant black darkness. 

“Jump for it, Eddie he shouted, jumping from his 
own place instantly. It was well that he did so, be¬ 
cause the blackness of the room was punctured by a 
vivid barking flash as a gun went oflP, filling the room 
with acrid smoke. 

In an instant the six men in the room were a tangle 
of striking arms and legs, each fearing to shoot, not 
knowing which was friend and which was foe. With a 
fearful, vivid joy, Val and Eddie plunged into the mass, 
striking, throwing aside, kicking. 

Val picked up a cursing body and threw it, knock¬ 
ing down furniture and men. He jumped into the 
thick of the struggling humans, pounding viciously 
with his ham-like fist and his revolver butt. At the 
door the mix-up was thickest. A figure jumped at 
Eddie. There was the sharp crack of a human fist 
on bone, and the man slumped down unconscious, as 
clean a knockout as was ever made. 

“Through the door, boss!’’ shouted Eddie. 

“Righto!” shouted Val, plunging for the entrance. 
A figure blocked his way. He picked it up and threw 
it through the door. It struck the stairs half way 
down and rolled on. 

“Now for it, young feller me lad!’^ shouted Val. 
Down the stairs they plunged, Val and Eddie. A re¬ 
volver barked three times after them, but they felt 
nothing. The doors in the apartments were closed— 
it was not a good time to open doors. 


THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 113 

Out into the street they burst, both of them, with 
a couple of shouting men in pursuit. New figures 
popped out of doors and took up the chase. 

“To the taxi, Eddie !’^ shouted Val. 

“Yes, sir,” returned Eddie, and fifty yards ahead 
of their pursuers, they made speed. They rounded 
the corner to the car. 

The corner was bare of automobiles. The taxi had 
gone. 

They glanced back for an instant. The pursuit was 
hot, and the pursuers’ numbers had been augmented. 

“Stop thief!” some one shouted, and the neighbor¬ 
hood, which a moment before had been silent and slum¬ 
berous, suddenly became a living maelstrom of hu¬ 
manity, swirling, streaming after the fugitives. 

“To the subway, Mr. Morley 1” panted Eddie. They 
turned at an acute angle and headed for the subway 
kiosk, two blocks away. . 

Through the night streets of the East Side they 
thundered, with the crowd after them, but nobody 
stopped their progress because, in the excitement, Val 
had forgotten to put away his gun, and he was still 
brandishing it as he ran. At last, still fifty yards to 
the good, they reached the kiosk. 

Down the stairs they clattered, only to see the tail 
lights of a train pulling out. Too late! _____ 

A thunderous noise made itself heard in the tunnel. 

“The other side!” panted Eddie. “There’s a train 
coming in.” 

They leaped over the turnstiles, jumped down to 
the tracks, and scrambled up on the other side just as 
a train thundered in, missing them by little more than 
the proverbial hair. The doors of the train opened. 


114? THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

Val and Eddie, the only oncoming passengers, entered, 
and the gates clanged shut again. The bell rang the 
length of the car, and with a grinding of flat wheeli^ 
the train started. Through the glass of the car plat¬ 
form Val and Eddie could see the forem.ost of the pur¬ 
suing gang plunge into the station and look up and 
down for their quarry. 

Val kissed his hand to them as the train pulled out. 

‘‘Rather close, what!^’ commented Val, and for the 
first time he was able to turn to Eddie. He gave a 
gasp of surprise. 

In his hand Eddie Hughes held carefully the suit¬ 
case containing the books they had gone after. 

Before a crackling blaze in the grate Val sat sunk 
deep in an easy chair, examining the books which were 
strewed around him. He was feeling better, more ex¬ 
hilarated with life, than he had felt for many a day. 
To-morrow he would have something to tell Jessica 
Pomeroy. He recounted to himself the several aspects 
of the story he would have to tell her. It was good. 
She could hardly keep on with Ignace Teck, now that 
he- 

“Anything more to-night, sir?’’ asked Eddie respect¬ 
fully, at the door. Val half turned. 

“Nothing, Eddie, except that you’re a good boy and 
in my report to G.H.Q. I’ll recommend you for con¬ 
spicuous coolness and daring under fire. You ought 
to get a citation for it, you know.” 

“Yes sir. Very good, sir,” grinned Eddie impas¬ 
sively. 

“Good night, Eddie,” said Val. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


115 


^‘Good night, sir,” He went to his room. 

Val turned to the books again. Carefully he went 
through the one he held in his hand, page by page. It 
was a volume of E. P. Roe’s. 

‘‘Imagine finding anything worth while in this 1” he 
muttered, and threw it aside to pick up another. For 
half or three quarters of an hour he sat before his fire, 
going through book after book. Not knowing what 
he was looking for, he found nothing. He could not 
seem to get on the track of anything that looked 
promising. 

It was a puzzle, but he did not have the key. It 
would have been hard enough even if he had known 
what he wanted, but he did not know even that. He 
had decided that the books had something to do with 
the money that old Peter Pomeroy had cached some¬ 
where—but in what way.? That he could not tell, and 
the books he had examined left him just as much in 
the dark. 

Now, if he only could unearth that money and hand 
it over to Jessica Pomeroy! The thought of the name 
brought him around to her, and he smiled gently. Was 
there ever a girl like her before.? There was not, he 
decided. She was the recapitulation of the eternal 
beauty of the world. 

And the way she had smiled at him to-night at times 1 
Why, it was like spring coming suddenly on a cold 
winter’s day, the sun breaking through a bleak cloud, 
flowers poking their gay heads through the snow blank¬ 
ets, stars in June skies, oases—was that the proper 
plural.?—in the Sahara, a fugitive moment of happi¬ 
ness— 

At this stage the telephone rang insistently. He 



116 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


turned impatiently to the offending instrument, ex¬ 
asperated at being interrupted just at the moment 
when he was about to think of the best figure of speech 
of all. But Eddie had retired to a well earned rest and 
he had to answer the call himself. He picked up the 
receiver. 

It was the hall boy. “There^s a man wants to see 
you, sir.?” came to him over the wires. 

“To see me—at this time of night.?” queried Val. 
“WhaPs he want.?” 

“I don’t know, sir. He’s a chauffeur and he says he 
has an important message for you personally.” 

“Well, send him in,” directed Val, putting down thq 
receiver. 

An important message for him at this time of night! 
There was only one thing that was important enough 

to break the night for him, and that was- Why, to 

be sure, perhaps it was from Jessica! He remembered 
now he had told her to look to him at any time of the 
day or night if she needed him. Why, perhaps she 
was in trouble. He hastened to the door and opened 
it. 

A chauffeur came out of the lobby and hurried to 
him. 

“Mr. Morley.?” he asked respectfully. 

Val nodded. “You have a message for me.?” 

“Yes, sir,” replied the chauffeur. “From Miss 
Pomeroy, sir.” 

A warm glow went through Val. She needed him, 
and she was sending for him. That was good. 

She wants you to come right away, sir—^my taxi is 
downstairs,” added the chauffeur. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 117 


“Come in,” said Val, and he preceded the man into 
his apartment, peeling off his dresing robe as he did 
so. 

“What^s the matter with Miss Pomeroy?” he asked. 

The driver shook his head negatively. “Dunno, sir. 
I was cruisin’ around without no fare in me cab when I 
passed through her street. She called to me from the 
window and I come up. Then she told me to come to 
you and ask you to come at once. That’s all I know, 
sir. Said I was to say it was very important.” 

“All right—be right with you,” snapped Val, going 
for his coat. 

He slipped his automatic into his pocket for the 
second time that night. 

“Might need it,” he muttered. He decided not to„ 
wake Eddie. He was tired and had done his share for 
that night. Probably he would not be necessary, any¬ 
way. Women get funny notions in the middle of the 
night, you know, and probably Jessica didn’t need him 
so badly as she thought she did. But he felt exhila¬ 
rated just the same. He glowed all over with the 
thought, the feeling that she had instinctively turned 
to him when she needed assistance. 

“Let’s go!” he snapped to the chauffeur. 

A shabby taxi was waiting outside and the driver 
jumped for the wheel. 

“Never mind the speed laws, young man,” directed 
Val. “Let ’er out.” 

“Yes, sir,” replied the driver of the car, which with a 
coughing of her exhaust, shot into high at once. 

Through the darkened streets they fled across town, 
leaving belated warfarers staring after them in aston- 


118 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


ishment as they shot along. Corners meant no slack¬ 
ening of the speed, and within the car Val, for all 
his bulk, rattled around like a pebble. 

‘‘Give er the gas 1’’ he shouted out to the driver. 
“Faster! Can’t you go faster!’^ 

The driver said nothing, but the maker of the car 
would have been glad to get his testimonial of the speed 
of which it was capable. It was not something for any 
automobile manufacturer to be ashamed of. Now that 
he had time to think of it, Val was beginning to be 
alarmed for the girl. Surely, it must be something 
of vast importance that would cause her to send for 
him so late at night. 

She was in danger! Perhaps, even now, whatever it 
was that was menacing her had overtaken her. Per¬ 
haps by now she was lying white and still- 

“Speed ’er up!” he shouted to the driver, who 
grunted something unintelligible in reply. VaPs 
strained, white face gazed at the backward flying, 
slumberous streets; his soul was leaping far ahead of 
the car, straining to get to the side of his well-beloved. 
The car swept around a corner into Jessica’s street, 
and with a grind of brakes slowed up in front of the 
house. 

“Here y’are, sir,” said the driver. 

Val banged the door open and leaped out, 

“Wait here!” he directed and plunged for the dark 
vestibule. 

He turned to the bells to find the name of Pomeroy, 
It was so dark he could not make it out, and he leaned 
forward further. 

Suddenly a million constellations burst before his 
eyes. Flowers bloomed and birds sang—or perhaps 



THE FIGHT FOR THE BOOKS 


119 


flowers sang and birds bloomed—it was all the same 
to Val. An inert mass of unthinking, unconscious 
flesh, he lay crumpled up, unconscious to a busy world, 
in the vestibule of the house of Jessica Pomeroy. 

Above him a large figure, grinning malevolently in 
the gloom, reared itself* 


XIV 


GREEN EYES THAT HYPNOTIZE 

The happiness was effaced from the features of 
Jessica Pomeroy as a ragged gray cloud wipes out 
the sun. Gone was her little moment of forgetfulness 
and returned the ever-present menace. The moments 
of conscious happiness in the ordinary life are woe¬ 
fully small and few, little glowing incandescent islands 
entirely surrounded by cares. They are to be seized 
and held close for their brief stay, because when once 
they go it is not within the power of man to recreate, 
to “recapture the first fine careless rapture” that was 
that instant. 

Something of all this dragged its way through the 
consciousness of Jessica as the taxicab bore her speed¬ 
ily back to her little flat—the flat where Ignace Teck 
awaited her. Happiness, then, was something to be 
looked at but not to be seized. It is the soap bubble 
of life, the will-o’-the-wisp of every day. She remem¬ 
bered that in “Alice in Wonderland” Alice was told 
that they never have jam to-day; they always have it 
yesterday or to-morrow—never to-day. Happiness, 
she decided, was close kin to that jam. Strange, too, 
how her thoughts of happiness were linked up with the 
figure of a clean-cut young man by the name of Val¬ 
entine Morley, a man she had spoken to so few times 
she scarcely knew the sound of his voice. If he could 
have known. . . . 


120 


GREEN EYES THAT HYPNOTIZE 121 

Jessica re-read Teck’s note as the taxicab shivered 
along the darkened streets. 

Come to your rooms at once. Important! Don’t waste 
a moment. Will explain when you arrive. 

I. T. 

This note had broken up her dinner party before it 
was half over; she had been snatching at her moment 
of happiness when she received it. The wording of 
the note had made it imperative that she leave at once; 
as to the news that awaited her, she had no inkling. 
iShe knew only that Teck considered it of supreme im¬ 
portance that she return at once, and, obeying the fear 
that was always within her where this man was con¬ 
cerned, she was doing so. Nobody knew the extent of 
the fear and loathing that the sight of this man Ignace 
Teck held for her. This was something she held locked 
in her breast, always remembering that this man had 
become a loathly object through his devotion to her. 
He had sacrificed himself for her, and she considered 
it but just that she should give herself to him. True, 
the right sort of man would have refused to hold her 
in the bonds of gratitude—^but he was Ignace Teck, 
who was wrapt in no such considerations. 

He rose when she entered her living room, and ad¬ 
dressed her ungraciously. 

‘‘Well, you took your time about coming, I must 
say.” 

She regarded him calmly, as always. 

“I came as rapidly as possible,” she intoned, ^ What 
is it you wanted.^” 

He paused for a moment before speaking, and made 
as if to place the stumps that were his hands on her 
shoulders. She evaded him with a single motion, as 


122 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


though unconscious of what he had wanted to do, but 
he looked at her significantly, and the angry red 
mounted into his well-fed countenance. 

“You always avoid me, Jessica,’’ he rasped. “Is it 
on account of my deformity? I know I am no pretty 

object, but if you will remember, I came by these-” 

“I know—I know, Ignace,” she broke in hastily. 
“What is it you wanted to see me about? Something 

that was so important-” 

“That I had to break up a nice little tete-a-tete be¬ 
tween you and that Morley idiot,” he broke in, leering 
sarcastically. “It would have to be important, of 
course, to interrupt that. Your relations with this 
man-” 

“My relations with this man are none of your busi¬ 
ness, Ignace Teck,” she broke in, “and don’t get the 
idea that you can order me around as though I be¬ 
longed to you already. I don’t—and I’m not so sure 
that I ever will . . .” she paused and looked at him 
without speaking with her lips, but her burning eyes 
spoke the balance of the sentence. 

“What do you mean?” he thundered at her. “If 

Valentine Morley has induced you to-” 

“I need nobody to induce me to do what my com¬ 
mon sense and my regard for the decencies instructed 
me long ago should be done,” she went on firmly, now 
that the matter had been begun. 

“You promised to marry me- 

“I promised to marry you,” she confirmed, interrupt¬ 
ing him again, “but the promise is not binding if you 
are a murderer. Nobody can be held to such a prom¬ 
ise and-” 

“How dare you say such a thing to me?” he inter¬ 
posed quietly, his eyes narrowing and the scar across 








GREEN EYES THAT HYPNOTIZE 123^ 


his face becoming purple, a deep gash across the sal¬ 
low skin of his evil lineaments, ^‘Just what do you 
mean by that?^^ 

‘‘You know very well what I mean,” she threw back 
at him, two spots of color flaring in her cheeks. “I 
mean that you murdered Matthew Masterson—I know 
it as though I had been present. It is exactly what 
you would do-” 

“ThaPs a lie!” he interposed in a staccato whisper. 


“Do 

books 


you mean to say that you didn’t steal the 


“Oh, that!” he dismissed that with a wave of a form¬ 
less wrist, and a flicker of feeling shaded its way across 
his expressionless, except for the scar, face. “That 
was important—I needed them. But as for the book¬ 
seller, I deny that I killed him.” 

“What is there in those books that makes them so 


important?” she asked, forcing herself to calmness. 
“I had them here for so long—you could have had them 
at any time for the asking; but no sooner do il dispose 
of them than-” 


“You will know in good time what there is in the 
books. To tell you the truth,” he whispered confiden¬ 
tially, “I am not exactly sure myself of what there is 
in them-~except . . .” he trailed off into an expres¬ 
sive silence, and she watched his features unbelievingly, 
knowing that there was more he did not choose to 
divulge. 

“If you think that there is a clue in them concerning 
the money that was left by my father,” she put in 
finally, “perhaps it will be well to remind you that 
the money belongs to me, in any event. Why should 

you take it upon yourself-” 

“Never mind that,” he interrupted harshly. “It con- 





124 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


cerns me, too. Do you think that after these years 
of waiting I am going to permit myself to be cast aside 
by you like a worn-out mare in a stable of blooded 
stock? Think it over carefully, Jessica—do you think 
I am the type of man who would permit it?” 

She had no answer to this, but there was the pallor 
of weariness in her face as she sank down into a soft 
chair on the opposite side of the room from him. 

“I have a way of getting what I go after,” he said 
after a pause, ‘‘and nobody knows that better than 
you—so you might just as well be good.” 

“Just what do you mean?” she inquired, flaring at 
him angrily. “Am I something that a man can go 
after—something to be had simply because he has 
made up his mind that he wants her?” 

“Come, come,” he smiled, and his face was strangely 
whimsical when he smiled that way, in strange contrast 
to the sinister appearance of the man when his fea¬ 
tures were in repose. “Don’t be theatrical about it— 
there is no need for that mask between us, my dear. 
You have promised to marry me—and when women 
promise to marry me—he smiled again—“I always 
make them stick to their promise. I suppose I’m queer 

that way, but”-he shrugged his shoulders-“I 

can’t help it. Life is very peculiar, and we must seize 
our moments of happiness on the fly!” 

This was so close to her own thoughts that she could 
hardly help gasping. She had rather prided herself on 
that bit of philosophy, but if philosophy was so easy 
that others could—without effort—think the same 
things, why it was scarcely worth while. Somebody 
has said that a great philosopher is one who says the 
things you have always thought but have never for¬ 
mulated into so many words. If what he writes causes 




GREEN EYES THAT HYPNOTIZE 125 


you to nod your head and say, “Yes, thaPs just what 
I have always thought,” he is a great philosopher. 
This is to be doubted. 

“But this business that was so important that you 

had to call me back to-night- 

“It’s just this,” he leaned over to her and spoke 
in a sibilant whisper. “I have rather a straight tip 
that the police are very close to making an arrest in 
the Masterson case and that I had better leave now 

while the leaving is fairly good-” 

“But I thought you just said you had nothing to 

do with the murder of that poor old- 

“I didn’t,” he answered, “but it might be a bit diffi¬ 
cult to prove just at this time. Because I did get the 
books, you see. So I thought it might be wise for us 
to go at once-” 

“Us?” she inquired, looking at him curiously. “I 

hardly see why you include me in this affair- 

^‘Because,” he said slowly, with a slight significant 
lift of his bushy brows, “if I don’t—the police will. 
They are sure to include you in this. They know of 
our relations with one another; if they don’t, it won’t 

be difficult for them to find out, anyway, and-” 

“But this is monstrous!” she ejaculated. “To have 

you drag me into a mess of this nature, when-” 

“I didn’t, my dear,” he interposed calmly, silencing 
her with a wave of his arm. “It is circumstances that 
seem to drag you into it, not I. You know, in view 
of the fact that you sold the books, it will be difficult 
to keep you out of it—innocent as you are—as we 
are, that is. But if we go away at once—to-night!” 
he staccatoed the last word at her in a way that made 
her shudder—“I have reason to believe we will not be 
suspected or molested.” 









126 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Where were you thinking of going she asked 
quietly. 

He shrugged his shoulders and considered for a mo¬ 
ment. “Down in Virginia, perhaps-” he suggested^ 

“Well, go ahead,” she threw at him coldly, and her 
eyes seemed the only live thing in her pale face as she 
spoke. 

“I’m going,” he nodded slowly. “So are you.” 

He spoke as though this were an accepted fact; as 
though it required but for him to enunciate the words 
to assure her that she was indeed going. It was a 
matter-of-fact, simple and concise statement of the 
future. 

“But not with you,” she said. “Not to Virginia— 
I’ll go where I please. And moreover, I want you to 
stay away from my property down there.” 

“Ah, yes—your property,” he acquiesced. “My 
mortgage- 

“As you know, I have sent down the money to sat¬ 
isfy the mortgage. It is now my property completely, 
and I don’t want you down there—is that plain?” 

He nodded silently, and held his peace for a few 
moments. 

“You don’t want me down there,” he repeated at 
last, as one who, repeating a lesson by rote, parrots 
the words almost without knowing what they signify. 
His shifty, small eyes contracted. 

“No,” she reiterated. “I want you to stay away 
from there.” 

“Yes, you would,” he said. “You are afraid that 
if the money turns up down there- 

“Whether it turns up or not has nothing to do with 
you. It is mine and it’s going to stay mine.” 

He had no answer for this for a few moments. When 





GREEN EYES THAT HYPNOTIZE 12T 


he rose finally, it was as one who has made his deci¬ 
sion ; one who has planned his course. 

“We are both going to Virginia—to-night,” he said 
softly, walking to her in his soft, catfooted way, lithe 
as a mountain animal, evil eyed and treacherous. 

She shrank back from his advance and would have 
screamed, but there was something in his greenish 
tinged eyes that held her, something horrible that clove 
her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Pale as death 
and rigid, she watched him come to her. 


XV 


EDDIE USES HIS BRAIN 

Eddie Hughes stirred restlessly in his sleep and 
groaned once or twice, as a restless sleeper sometimes 
will. He opened his eyes and stared at the blackness 
of the room, listening with all his faculties, for some 
reason, straining his eardrums and his eyes to the full¬ 
est extent. He had a feeling that all was not well. 

The house was silent as the grave; there was abso¬ 
lutely nothing stirring, but Eddie had an oppressed 
feeling—a feeling that something had gone on there 
while he was asleep. He had known such a feeling in 
the trenches—^the sensation that something was due 
to happen, and generally it did happen, a midnight 
raid or a sudden air attack that was not written into 
the program. That was the sensation he had now, 
and he gave way to it by arising softly and opening 
his door quietly to peer out into the dim light of the 
hall at the end of which was the closed door of his 
master’s bedroom. 

A draft breezed along the hall and made him un¬ 
comfortable in his thin pajamas. A window was open! 

He contracted his brows. Of course there were win¬ 
dows open in the apartment, but none that should cause 
this draft, no matter how windy it was outside. The 
inference was plain; somebody had opened a window 
that was not generally open, and his mind traveled 
128 


EDDIE USES HIS BRAIN 


129 


instantly back to the time when he had discovered the 
side window in the living room open—the time when 
Mr. Morley had been chloroformed. 

Silently, noiselessly, Eddie crept along the hall, for 
some unknown reason hugging the wall. At the door, 
of the living room he paused, merging himself with 
the shadows. For a full minute he listened, hearing 
nothing. If there had been any one there he would 
surely have heard something—the sound of breathing, 
a board creaking underfoot, the soft pad of feet across 
thick rugs. It is not possible to move about in a room 
without leaving some trace for the auditory senses, 
some trail of movement. Sounds are comparative 
things, and the creaking of a board, however slight, 
is as audible in the stillness of the night as a pistol shot 
in broad daylight, if one is listening. 

Softly Eddie entered the living room. Against the 
lightened darkness of the window his eye caught the 
delicate tracery of the lace curtains, not hanging 
quietly, as was their wont, but blowing inward slightly. 
He advanced to the window and inspected it. It was 
open. 

He glanced around at the living room, which he 
could see dimly, now that his eyes were becoming ac¬ 
customed to the darkness. Nothing was disturbed, 
nothing had been moved. The room was as it always 
had been. 

But not quite. There was a (difference, nothing tan¬ 
gible, nothing that one could put his hand on, but 
there was a feeling of change in the air, a feeling that 
someone who did not belong had been there. Rooms 
are like persons; they have their moods, moods of hap¬ 
piness and of gloom, of rest and of restlessness; every¬ 
one who has a favorite room in his home knows this. 


130 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


Something of the mood of resentment that was in the 
living room enveloped Eddie’s senses, some emotion 
that a stranger, an intruder, had been there. Of 
course, there was the evidence of the open window, but 
he would have known, even without that. 

He tiptoed out into the hall again and paused for a 
moment in front of his master’s door, listening for the 
regular breathing that he usually could hear at this 
time of the night. He heard nothing at all. He had 
slept soundly all through the visit of the chauffeur 
who had come to bear his master away, and conse¬ 
quently knew nothing of it, so there was something 
alarming in the fact that, along with the open window 
in the living room, he could not hear his employer 
breathing. 

He placed his hand on the knob and tried it; it 
opened quietly, and he pushed the door open suddenly, 
out of patience with all this early morning mystery and 
tired of the obvious necessity for quiet. With a swift 
movement he switched on the light. The bed had not 
been slept on. 

He surveyed the room hastily. Nothing had been 
disturbed, as in the living room. 

“M-mm!” he reflected. “Something phoney about 
this—window open, Mr. Morley gone. He didn’t go 
through the window, I guess.” He considered this for 
a brief space, looking around the room for something 
which he had missed. He stepped quickly into the 
living room and glanced around quickly in there. His; 
brow contracted in further worry. 

The books were gone again. 

He could not suppress an amused smile at this. 
“Like a bloomin’ game of ‘button, button, who’s got 
the button.f^’ ” he commented. 


EDDIE USES HIS BRAIN 


131 


‘‘That mysterious bird’s been here again—and gone,” 
he muttered to himself, and in the same breath cursed 
himself for his careless stupidity. 

Of course he had come for the books—^it was to be 
expected; it was positively stupid not to watch out 
for him. Yet it had not occurred to either of them, 
somehow. These were not things that happened in 
every day life, though they were common in books. 
One did not expect midnight visitors without hands, 
who came in when you weren’t looking and went just 
as silently. And yet it had occurred. He had come 
in and taken the books. It was as easy as that. 

That being the case, where was his employer. It 
was not like him to go out again, when once he had 
come home for the night. In fact, he had told Eddie 
that he intended to go to bed in a few minutes, after 
he had made a cursory examination of the books. And 
now he was gone, and an examination proved to Eddie 
that he had taken his light fall coat and a hat. Evi¬ 
dently he had gone of his own free will. 

Also, evidently, he had gone before the books had 
been stolen, because there was no sign of any struggle, 
and Eddie did not consider it possible that anybody 
could come in and gather up those books and make 
his escape without Mr. Morley’s being aware of it. 

That led to another train of thought. Probably the 
intruder knew that he would not be home. That being 
the case, Eddie carried the idea a little further. Per¬ 
haps he had made sure that his employer would not be 
home by the simple expedient of calling him out on 
some cock and bull errand. 

Where was he now.^^ Perhaps he needed him. 

“Might’ve knew what would happen, soon’s he got 
mixed up with a woman,” muttered Eddie. He had 


132 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

disapproved of this from the beginning, simply because 
there had been a woman in it. Adventures centering 
about women never do go off according to schedule. 
There is always something uncomfortable in them. 
“Female women, blast ^eml” he muttered again, and 
continued pondering upon the present whereabouts of 
Valentine Morley. 

Eddie knew that there was just one kind of a mes¬ 
sage that could call Valentine Morley out at any time 
during the night—a message from Jessica Pomeroy— 
a good looking girl with trouble and sudden death in 
her eyes, he reflected. He dressed and, slipping an 
automatic into his side pocket, went out to interview 
the night man concerning any visitors with a message 
that his master might have had after he, Eddie, had 
retired. 


XVI 


FACED BY DEATH 

Never was fashionable St. Thomas’s so crowded, so 
brilliant, so athrill with the thrill that comes only with 
a long expected wedding in high places. Every seat 
in the large church was filled and the crowd stood five 
deep behind the last expensive pew. 

Nervous, but adorable in his shy nervousness, Val¬ 
entine Morley waited at the altar, his best man a little 
to one side of him. His heart leaped within him, bu^ 
there was a scared feeling also that he had never ex¬ 
perienced in France. 

There was a great burst of music and the thrill of 
young voices leaping upwards to the vaulted roof, as 
Jessica Pomeroy and her retinue appeared at the head 
of the aisle. Stately the music became, and slow, and 
the procession started down the aisle. 

A burst of gladness, a desire to shout in his joy, 
coursed through Val as he watched the bewildering 
picture of the girl who was to be Mrs. Valentine 
Morley, a girl and yet a woman as she glided down the 
aisle in solemn time to the music. The procession 
halted at the altar, and a slight perspiration broke 
out over Val when it occurred to him that perhaps his 
best man had forgotten the ring. 

^'Steady, old boy,” came the reassuring voice of the 
best man in his ear. ^‘The filly’ll wait; don’t be afraid. 
No false starts, now.” 


133 


134 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


He nodded slightly, strengthened by the well known 
voice. He heard little more that was understandable, 
though a great deal was said. At last he discovered 
that the minister was saying: 

‘‘Do you, Valentine, take this woman to be your 
lawful wife?’’ 

“There was a hush in the great church as all eyes 
turned toward Valentine Morley. He tried to an¬ 
swer, but something ^tuck in his throat; suddenly his 
throat and mouth were drier than they had ever been. 

“Say yes, you dumbbell!” grated the voice of his best 
man, softly. “This is no time to change your mind.” 

Val gulped again, a light perspiration bedewing his 
brow. 

With an extreme effort he spoke. 

“I do!” he rasped hoarsely. 

“You do what?” inquired a voice in front of him, 
and he turned to discover the sinister figure of Ignace 
Teck. The dream vanished instantly. 

There was a gasp of disappointment as he discovered 
that there was no wedding; that he was lying on a 
couch in a very uncomfortable position, staring up at 
the huge figure of the handless one. 

“Go to hell!” he rasped at Teck, annoyed. The 
change was too great to accept all at once. He stared 
at Teck a little curiously, half expecting him to dis¬ 
solve, to disappear like the figures of his dream. Rut 
Ignace Teck was doing no disappearing this day—this 
was his day to appear, not to disappear. He was an 
apparition, but flesh and blood apparition. 

“Ah, your usual courteous self,” came the suave 
voice of Teck. 

Val tried to sit up, and found that it was difficult. 


FACED BY DEATH 135 

He needed no glance at his limbs to discover that he 
was bound hand and foot. 

“Stay the way you are,” suggested Teck. ‘You’ll 
find it more comfortable l^dng down.” 

Val glanced at as much of the room as he could see. 
It was a well furnished bedroom, with a couch at the 
side on which he was lying. Through the open door 
he could see a living room which he recognized. 

He was in Ignace Teck’s apartment. 

“To what am I indebted for the honor you pay me,” 
he inquired of Teck carelessly. 

Teck dismissed it with a wave of his stump. “It’s 
nothing—a little game of my own, you know. No 
trouble to me, I assure you.” 

. “H-m-m! I suppose not,” said Val dryly. “I might 
have known you would figure somewhere in this, Iggy.” 

^‘My name is Ignace—preferably Mister Teck to 
you,” put in Teck, with dignity. 

“Ah yes, Iggy, you are perfectly right. But why 
be so formal among friends?” bantered Val. “And, by 
the way, these cords of yours are hurting my wrists, 
you know.” 

“Indeed?” put in Teck politely. 

“And, although I can’t feel it, I suspect I have a 
rather large bump on my head,” continued Val. 

“Indeed you have,” Teck assured him. “And you 
can thank your stars that you still have your head, 
my lad. If I had followed my own inclinations in the 
matter . . .” he paused significantly, but there was no 
mistaking the meaning of his glance at Val. 

“What pleasant ideas you have, Iggy?” admired 
Val. “I must say that must have been a man’s-sized 
bump on the bean you handed me, Iggy ” 


136 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“1?^^ expostulated the other. ‘‘How could I, with 
nothing but these—these——He said no more, but 
exhibited his handless wrists. “You flatter me, my 
friend.” 

“I don’t know how you did it—^but I guess you have 
your methods,” suggested Val. “Excellent and effi¬ 
cient ones, I imagine, too.” 

The other nodded, smiling a trifle. He was in great 
good humor with himself at the moment. Things were 
going right. His enemy had been delivered—with a 
bit of help on his own part—^into his hands. He was 
in a position to draw his teeth—or render his informa¬ 
tion valueless. He could aflPord to be a trifle amused 
and self-satisfied. 

“I am glad to hear that you recognize the efficiency 
of my methods. You realize, perhaps, that I get what 
I go after. In fact, I might say I never fail,” he told 
Val, who watched him curiously. “I have never failed,” 
he repeated impressively. 

“So?” queried Val nonchalantly. “Ah, well, people 
die to-day who never died before.” 

The other smiled. “Don’t delude yourself. If 
there’s any dying to be done around here, my lad, it’ 
isn’t going to be me.” He paused and looked at him 
significantly, his meaning plain. There was something 
fearsome about this man, in spite of his assumed pleas¬ 
ant manner, his finely modulated tones. There was an 
underlying threat in every syllable, in every lithe move 
of his big body, in every glance of his greenish tinged 
eyes. On his lips a well-bred smile became a leer and 
a pleasant word veiled a curse. Val was supremely 
conscious of the fact that here was a man who would 
stop at nothing to attain his end, whatever that was. 
Here was a man to whom no villainy was too 



FACED BY DEATH 137 

great if thereby he might achieve that which he 
desired. 

It roused a streak of unreasoning obstinacy in Val, 
an obstinacy that had often won over his better and 
more sensible instincts. He was rich; he was young; he 
was presentable; women liked him; headwaiters adore4 
him; his own way had been accorded to him as a matter 
of course, and it rasped on him to find that here was 
another man who insisted on having his own way, and 
who usually had it. Well, they would see. 

‘‘Just what do you propose to do with me?’’ he 
asked. “What is it you wish from me, that you should 
go to all this trouble-” 

“I’ll tell you, my friend,” put in Teck. “I want 
your word that you will withdraw from this—er—^this 
affair—you know what I mean—and stay withdrawn. 
I want you to promise that you will not attempt to 
communicate with Miss Pomeroy in any way that you 
will not continue your acquaintance with her; an ac¬ 
quaintance, by the way, which I warned you would 
turn out badly for you. You refused to heed the 
warning and- 

“And just look at me now,” finished Val. 

“I also want your word that you will make no men¬ 
tion of anything that has gone before in this affair 
to any one-” 

“Not even the police?” mocked Val. 

“Not even the police-—^though I don’t believe you 
would do that, anyway, because the slightest mention 
of the matter would bring Miss Pomeroy into the lime¬ 
light. In a word, I want your promise that you will 
step out of the lives of myself and Miss Pomeroy at 
once, and stay stepped out. Have I made myself 
clear?” 





138 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“You have,” answered Val. “Why should I prom¬ 
ise any such fool thing—and what means have you of 
forcing me to do it, in case I should refuse?” 

“You can promise what I ask because it means that 
if you do life will be a great deal easier for Miss 
Pomeroy than it has been since you came into the 

picture. If you don’t-” 

“Are you threatening harm to Miss Pomeroy?” 
grated Val harshly. “By God, if harm comes to her 
in the slightest way through you I’ll carve your liver 
out, do you hear me? I’ll take you apart to see what 
makes you go! Don’t think for a moment that be¬ 
cause you have me trussed up here-” 

“Words, my boy, words. Talk is very economical 
‘—doesn’t cost much. You’re not in a position to make 
any threats, because you’re going to promise me that 
you’re going to go out of Miss Pomeroy’s life for 
good.” 

“And if I don’t?” 

The other looked at him calmly, dispassionately for 
a moment, seeming to weigh his words. 

“If you don’t,” he said at length; “ah, yes, if you 
don’t, to be sure. Well, if you don’t, you’ll have to 
be—er—^removed, that’s all. You won’t be the first 
man whose mouth has been sealed by—er—an untimely 
demise. A pity, too,” he said, shaking his head com- 
miseratingly, “you’re young, and a rather nice looking 
boy. Really, too nice to have people filing past you 
and saying sadly, ‘Doesn’t he look natural!’ Now, 
you’d better be sensible and do what I ask, because^ 

I assure you that I’m not bluffing in the slightest-” 

“Aw, go to hell!” interrupted Val, bad temperedly. 
“I want to get some sleep.” 

“You’ll sleep when I get done with you—perhaps 






FACED BY DEATH 


139 


more than you wish,’’ said Teck. ‘T want to warn you, 
too, that you’d better not try to escape, because if 
you do you’ll be killed instantly. O’Hara!” he called 
out into the next room. 

“Here y’are, boss,” came the answer promptly, and 
an unshaven, hulking tough came into the room. One 
of his eyes was wickedly beady and black. Probably 
the other one was, too, normally. At present it was 
puffed to unholy proportions, and blue. He had a 
face like a horse, with a large, coarse looking nose and 
lips and ears laid well back to his closely cropped 
head. 

“Hello, Horseface,” called Val, cheerily. “Did you 
attend my little party here earlier in the evening 
From the appearance of yon weakly glowing orb, I 
have me suspicions.” 

“Yes, I wuz here—an’ I’ll be here when you’re gone, 
kid,” answered the one called Horseface. 

“Maybe—maybe,” said Val. “In the meantime-” 

“In the meantime,” said Teck, “I just called him 
in to show you that you’re covered—that the slightest 
move to escape on your part means death. What are 
your orders, O’Hara, if this man tries to escaj^ or to 
shout?” 

^‘To pump hot lead inta him, that’s all, boss,” said 
Horseface with satisfaction. ^‘An’ I might add that 
it will give me pleasure to carry out them there orders, 
too-” 

“All right,” interrupted Teck, nodding to the door. 
The tough withdrew to the next room and took up his 
silent vigil again. 

“Nice, pleasant little playmates you have, Iggy> 
old thing,” commented Val. “Must be a great intel¬ 
lectual satisfaction-” 





140 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Intellectual satisfaction will not mean much to you 
when you’re saying ‘Hello^ St. Peter/ ” said Teck, with 
meaning. 

“I say,” said Val, “I’m awfully thirsty—can I have 
a drink of water .f”’ As a matter of fact his tongue and 
mouth were parched with thirst. He had been a trifle 
feverish after the blow on the head which he had re¬ 
ceived, and his throat felt dry as dust. He felt the need 
of water more than he had ever felt it before. 

“Ah, water, to be sure. I’m thirsty myself,’^ nodded 
Teck mildly. “O’Hara, bring in a glass of water, will 
you.” 

O’Hara grunted, and in a moment Val heard the 
sound of running water in the kitchen. In a few mo¬ 
ments the horsefaced one brought in an overflowing 
glass. 

“Thanks,” said Teck. He took the glass between 
his two maimed wrists and held it before him reflect¬ 
ively. “Surprising how badly one wants water when 
he wants it,” he commented, “isn’t it.^ Now, take you, 
for instance, Mr. Morley. You’d probably appreciate 
this humble glass of water, if I should give it to you, 
wouldn’t you.? You’d—— 

“Don’t you intend to give it to me.?” asked Val. 

The other shook his head, mildly surprised. “Give 
it to you.? Why, I’m thirsty myself.” He drained the 
glass at a gulp and set it on the table. “Ah, that was 
good,” he wiped his lips. “There’s nothing so good 
as water when you’re thirsty. Think it over, Mr. 
Morley—you may be thirstier before you get it.” He 
rose. 

“You dirty hound,” said Val, exasperated. “Do you 
mean to torture me-” 

The other looked at him, pained. “Torture you? 




FACED BY DEATH 


141 


How can you say so, my dear fellow? I, the kindest 
hearted of men! Really, you know, it hurts me to 
have you say such things of me. All you have to do 
is to promise what I ask—then I’ll give you all the 
water you want, and your freedom. It isn’t much to 
ask.” 

“I’ll see you in hell first, you snake,” said Val, pleas¬ 
antly, smiling though his throat felt the need of water 
now more than before, having seen the relish with 
which Teck drank his glass. “Did you think it would 
be as easy as that?’^ 

The other shook his head. “No, I was afraid it 
would not be as easy as that. However, you may come 
to your senses yet. In the meantime, I feel the need 
of a couple of hours sleep myself—it’s almost daylight. 
When I wake you can tell me your decision.” 

“I’m telling it to you now, Iggy,’^ replied Val. 
“Nothing doing.” 

Teck shook his head again, but said nothing. He 
threw himself down on the bed and went to sleep im¬ 
mediately. 

In a few moments Val was asleep, too. 


xvn 


A DESERTED APARTMENT 

Eddie Hughes’ interview with the night man con¬ 
firmed his suspicions. A taxi chauffeur had called 
with a personal message for Mr. Morley—a message 
which he was at pains to deliver personally. And Mr. 
Morley had gone away with him in the taxicab with no 
loss of time. 

Eddie nodded his head in confirmation of what he 
had been thinking. There was just one thing that would 
call Valentine Morley out at that time of the night 
—a message from Miss Pomeroy. She was in trouble, 
and Mr. Morley had gone to her assistance. Or—^and 
this came to Eddie like a sudden shaft of light—sup¬ 
pose Mr. Morley had been told that Miss Pomeroy 
needed him. Suppose that somebody wanted Mr. 
Morley out of the way—and conceived this means of 
removing him. 

Having removed him thus, what had they done with 
him then? That was something for Eddie to find out, 
supposing his assumption was correct and his employer 
was not on some legitimate business that was none of 
his, Eddie’s, affair. But Eddie rather thought that if, 
Mr. Morley was able to come home, he would already 
have done so. Not having done so was an indication 
to him either that his employer could not, physically, 
come home, or that the business upon which he was en¬ 
gaged was of such magnitude that it necessitated his 
142 


A DESERTED APARTMENT 


143 


staying out until morning—in which event Eddie imag¬ 
ined that perhaps he could be of service to his 
employer. 

Eddie was helped in these suppositions by the fact 
that Valentine Morley led a regular, decent life. He 
was not a midnight rounder, despite his wealth and 
the temptations to so become; he loved his home and 
his own fireside and his books—and if he was to stay 
out later than in any way usual, he would be sure to 
inform Eddie of that fact. It was now nearly morn¬ 
ing, and he was not home. That meant that Eddie 
'lad better begin to look him up. 

Eddie went around the comer to the house garage 
and got out the low, speedy roadster. 

“Goin’ outta see how the night^s holdin^ up, me 
bucko inquired the night watchman at the garage. 

“Naw,” said Eddie. “Pm going out to the park to 
do Greek dances in the dewy grass, get me? Barefoot 
stuff, an’ flowin’ robes, far from the maddin’ throng. 
Us esthetic guys get that way sometimes, seel” 

With a look of disgust the watchman settled back 
in his seat. “Which the same ain’t sayin’ that you nor 
that fool millionaire boss a’ youra ain’t capable av 
doin’ such,” he offered. 

“Cheerio!” remarked Eddie with a wave of his hand. 
He had learned the word in France, having heard 
British officers use it occasionally, and he lost no op¬ 
portunity of getting it off. 

“Now, don’t git them little feetsies av yourn damp, 
love,” called out the watchman after Eddie as the car 
slid out of the garage. The roadster swept around 
the corner with a roar and was lost in the darkness 
in a moment. 

If a message from Miss Pomeroy had called his em- 


144 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


ployer out, that, then, was the place to start looking 
for him. It occurred to Eddie that he might be butting 
into something where he would not be very welcome, but 
he cast off the thought with a shrug of his broad 
shoulders. Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps Mr. 
Morley needed him. 

And if Mr. Morley needed him, hell was not too hot 
for him to cross, nor the ocean too damp. He would 
carry on, on the chance of his being useful. 

Running his engine as quietly as possible, he drew 
up at the door of the flat house where Jessica Pome¬ 
roy lived. He sat in his seat, before the darkened, 
silent house, for a few minutes, deliberating on what 
his next move should be. Of course, the straightfor¬ 
ward move, and the obvious one, was simply to ring 
Miss Pomeroy’s bell and go on u;^. It was as simple 
as that. 

But actually it was not as easy as all that. One 
hesitated to ring the bell of a stranger at this time 
of the night; that is, unless one were very sure of his 
ground. And Eddie was not any too sure of what h» 
was doing. After all, was it his business ? It was not, 
he decided. 

Then why shouldn’t he turn the car in the direction 
of home, go there, and finish his sleep? No doubt, by 
morning, Mr. Morley would return, and no one would 
be any the wiser for this little nocturnal trip^ And 
there is little doubt that that is just what Eddie would 
have done, had it been simply a case of Valentine 
Morley not coming home. But his being out at this 
time of the night, coupled with the fact of the theft of 
the books (again) ; these two things together gave the 
matter an ugly look. Eddie could not cast out of his 


A DESERTED APARTMENT 


145 


mind the thought that his master had been lured out 
of the house. That being so, he might need him rather 
badly. 

With a muttered curse on all men who were thick 
headed enough to get mixed up with female women, 
Eddie climbed out of the car and entered the vestibule. 

He rang the Pomeroy bell and waited for the answer¬ 
ing tick. There was none, though he gave the occu¬ 
pants of the Pomeroy flat plenty of time to get out of 
bed and open the door. He rang again, loudly and 
insistently this time, but still he got no answer. He 
rang again, and shook impatiently at the door. It 
opened, though there was no tick of the electric push 
button. Like many flat house doors, it was open more 
often than it was shut. 

He peered into the silent gloom of the hall, but 
could see nothing. On a last chance he rang the bell 
again, keeping the door open with his foot. There was 
no answer, and on a sudden determination he entered 
the dark hall and made his way upstairs to the Pome¬ 
roy flat. 

Here he rang the bell loudly and heard it reverberat¬ 
ing inside, but there was no answer and he became con¬ 
vinced that nobody was home. He tried the door, and 
to his surprise it opened. The lock was not of the 
spring type, and evidently whoever had charge of such 
matters had forgotten to turn the key. 

‘‘H-m-m, must’ve been in an awful rush to get out,” 
muttered Eddie, straining his eyes to see into the apart¬ 
ment. He could see nothing, and resolving to press 
his luck he entered. He struck a match and lighted 
the gas in the hall, and from there went into the living 
room, where he also struck a light. 


146 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


The place was deserted. He did not need an inspec¬ 
tion of the rooms to convince him that there was 
nobody in the house. 

‘‘Nobody alive, that is,” he commented to himself. 

In one of the bedrooms he found the door of the 
closet open, and the scattered condition of the clothes, 
both in the closet and around the room persuaded him 
that the occupant or occupants had left in a hurry. 
The dresser top was swept bare of toilet articles, and 
lying on the floor was a timetable. 

They had left in a hurry, certainly. So far, so 
good; but where did his employer come in here. Had 
he left with them? And if so, where had they gone? 

The timetable gave him a slight hint. It was a rail¬ 
road having its terminus in Norfolk, Virginia. He 
knew that in Virginia the Pomeroys had an estate, 
somewhere outside of Hampton, which is very near 
Norfolk. Had they gone down there? 

Probably. But would Mr. Morley have gone down 
there with them so suddenly without leaving with him 
some word of his travels ? He had to admit that, based 
on past performances, that was unlikely. At any rate, 
he had never done anything of that nature before. 

This led to another train of thought. Was Valentine 
Morley with Miss Pomeroy? He had decided that his 
employer had been lured out of his house—certainly it 
wasn’t Miss Pomeroy who had done the luring. No, 
it was quite likely that Miss Pomeroy had departed 
without his master, for the simple reason that his 
master was somewhere else at the time. 

But where? Eddie’s brow furrowed in thought. 
Who would find it necessary or expedient to lure Mr. 
Morley out of his house? Why, the man who wanted 
to steal the books. Who was that.^^ Eddie’s brow, 


A DESERTED APARTMENT 


147 


cleared. That was simple; why, the bird without no 
hands, to be sure. How dumb he had been not to think 
of that! 

Well, he knew where he lived, at all events. A visit 
down there might do no harm, though one had better 
be careful how he prowled around in that neighbor¬ 
hood. Though, come to think of it, that was rather a 
glorious fight they had had there earlier in the evening., 
Eddie^s eyes brightened. There was much in this affair 
he could not understand, but a fight was a fight in any 
language, and there were few people who enjoyed one 
better than he. Now, if a man was looking for a fight, 
where was a better place to go than to the house of 
Ignace Teck.? 

Closing the door behind him, Eddie made his way 
softly downstairs and entered his car. As silently as 
his engine would permit, he swung out into the center 
of the roadway and hit the dust for the corner. At 
the corner he swung the nose of his car downtown, in 
the direction of the residence of Ignace Teck. 

Dawn was beginning to break over the sleeping city 
as Eddie Hughes sped downtown in his employer’s 
roadster. In black, bold relief, like the background 
of an etching, the houses to the east stood out against 
the slowly rising light. Suddenly the street lamps 
went out, leaving the city in a tenebrous, gray light 
that peopled the disappearing shadows with velvet 
darkness. 

The city began to awake. There was the clank of 
the milkman’s bottles, and the clang of the street 
cleaner’s cart. To the east the roar of the elevated 
railway punctuated hoarsely the sleep of those within 
range. Newsdealers appeared on the street comers 
with the morning edition of some papers and the after- 


148 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


noon and evening editions of certain other sensational 
papers which shall here be nameless. 

At Spring Street Eddie turned east to the elevated 
railway. He did not think it wise to pay his intended 
visit to Teck in this expensive car. It was not the kind 
of a neighborhood for that sort of thing, and besides, 
he did not wish to advertise his interest in the matter. 
If his employer was anywhere around Teck^s rooms, 
it would be because he couldn’t get away; certainly, 
then, secrecy was a necessity. The way to serv'e 
secrecy would be to come on foot, silently, and unob¬ 
trusively. 

Under the elevated railway Eddie hunted up an all 
night garage where he was familiar with the proprietor. 
He stored his car there, saying that he would be back 
soon. Then, slipping his hand into his pocket to see 
that he still had his automatic, he turned his face in 
the direction of the house of Ignace Teck, 


XVIII 


FATAL ORDERS 

Val was awakened by the clatter of plates and eat¬ 
ing utensils. The smell of crisp bacon and fried eggs 
came pleasantly to his nostrils. It was broad day¬ 
light, and the sun was streaming into the dingy apart¬ 
ment through the window opposite the couch on which 
Val lay. 

At the table sat Ignace Teck, making a hearty and 
evidently enjoyable meal, managing his utensils with 
an awkward cleverness that bespoke many years of 
doing the same thing. He did it surprisingly well, and 
Val could see that he ate with almost as little trouble 
as a man in possession of all his limbs. He held his 
fork pressed between his two wrists, and was remark¬ 
ably limber and clever at it. 

Val wondered how he went about dressing. One 
could hold a fork or a knife between his wrists, but 
how did one button a shirt That was something that 
needed fingers and thumbs. How did one put in a col¬ 
lar button—sometimes hard enough for normal per¬ 
sons, even.? Val decided that he probably had as¬ 
sistance. 

He also decided that, in addition to being abominably 
thirsty, he was hungry; he knew there was little chance 
of getting food here. Yet the fine tang of the sizzling 
bacon was tantalizing to a man who was bound hand 
149 


150 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


and foot and knew he would probably get no breakfast 
of any kind. 

“I say, you do that rather well, you know,” said 
Val. 

The other turned and regarded him pleasantly. 

‘‘Oh, you^re awake, are you?” he asked unnecessarily, 
and smiled. “Isn’t it funny the useless questions 
people ask? Now, I can see darn well you’re awake— 
and yet I ask. I guess it’s just to be polite.” 

“Be polite, to be sure,” agreed Val. “Let nothing 
interfere with your good manners. Even when you’re 
committing a murder—just a slight murder, you know, 
nothing much—do it in a genteel way; be cultured 
above all things. Remember Gilbert’s little poem: 

When the enterprising burglar isn’t burgling. 

When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime. 

He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling. 

And listen to the merry village chime. 

When the coster’s finished jumping on his mother. 

He loves to lie a-basking in the sun; 

Ah, take one consideration with another. 

The policeman’s lot is not a happy one V* 

Teck laughed, and went on eating, not able to reply 
because his mouth was rather full of toast and bacon 
and egg. 

“Though I suppose it’s rather bad form to mention 
a policeman to you, isn’t it?” he suggested pleasantly. 
“In the house of the hangman, you know-” 

“That’s all right, I don’t mind, my friend,” assured 
Teck. “Have your little minute, if you wish—^it won’t 
be long.” 

“Well, that’s about all any of us have on this old 
earth, isn’t it?” queried Val. “A little minute—and 
darkness- 


“Darkness comes to some quicker than to others,” 




FATAL ORDERS 151 

put in Teck. “Especially to the obstinate.” He took 
another mouthful. 

“Smells good,” suggested Val, hopefully. 

“It is good,” Teck assured him. “There are very 
few better cooks than O’Hara, when he isn’t-” 

“When he isn’t engaged in the delightful pastime of 
assassination, I suppose. I say, is he a union murderer, 
or does he have to put in more than eight hours a day, 
at manslaughter? This is not mere curiosity, you 
know; I ask because I am interested in the betterment 
of conditions for the working classes. Does he have 
to specialize, or is he permitted to vary his duties by 
a little burglary here and there, or an occasional bit 
of assault and battery? You know for yourself how 
boring and monotonous it is, committing nothing but 
murder all the time, with never a chance-” 

“Hope you’^re enjoying yourself, Mr. Morley,” put 
in Teck tersely. “It’s your last chance, you know. 
Still thirsty?” 

“Why? Aren’t thinking of giving me food and 
drink, are you?” Val asked. 

The other shook his head. “No,” he said regretfully, 
“it would not be in strict accord with the most elemen¬ 
tary principles of economics. Suppose you promise 
what I ask—^what happens? Why, you go free, and 
in five minutes are buying your own food at a restau¬ 
rant. Suppose you don’t—^what happens?” he asked 
this judicially. “Why, in a short time you won’t feel 
the need of food—it’ll be all the same whether you were 
hungry or whether you were sated—see! That beings 
the case, why should I waste my substance on you? 
Do you find any flaw in my reasoning? Speak up if 
you do—I’m rather proud of that sequence of 
thought.” 




152 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

“Seems to be 0. K.,” admitted Val, “always suppos¬ 
ing, of course, that your suppositions come through as 
scheduled. Now suppose, for instance, that I not only 
refuse to promise what you wish me to promise, but I 
also escape. Suppose—^” 

“Nonsense,’^ Teck shook his head. “You cannot 
escape. O^Hara is in the next room, and the house is 
surrounded by—by my friends. You are bound. The 
slightest noise means that you will be gagged—^if neces¬ 
sary, knocked on the head. It hurts me to have to tell 
you these things, my friend, because I am naturally of 
a kindly disposition, and I wouldn^t wish to cause pain 
to the slightest of His creatures, but—of course,” he 
said with a sigh, “if you make it necessary, why, one 
must do one’s duty, distasteful as it is.” 

“Sounds all right,” said Val. “But this is a civilized 
city—New York, you know; one doesn’t commit a mur¬ 
der and get away with it like that. My—er—body, for 
instance- 

“Oh, don’t give yourself the slightest concern about 
that,” Teck waved the suggestion aside airily. “Don’t 
worry about it, I beg of you. As for the proper dis¬ 
position of—er—remains, why, we have our own sys¬ 
tem, and a very efficient one it is, too, let me tell you. 
No, you needn’t worry about that.” 

“That’s all right, then,” said Val. “Relieves my 
mind a great deal, you know. One naturally would be 
concerned about these things, that is, even if one is 
convinced that you’re a damned bluffer, to say nothing 
of being a liar who would never have the nerve to carry 
out the plan you have indicated.” 

The other looked at him, pained, “My dear boy, I’m 
sorry you feel it necessary to use such strong language 




FATAL ORDERS 


153 


to me. I haven’t asked much of you—just a promise 
to withdraw from this affair entirely—an affair that 
really does not concern you, anyway; surely you can 
see that in this thing you’re nothing but an outsider, 
who has butted into things that are none of his busi¬ 
ness. Just promise me to keep away from Miss Pome¬ 
roy for good, and to-” 

“Iggy,’^ said Val, “will you be good enough to go to 
hell?” 

“Ah, still unregenerate, I see,” Teck shrugged his 
shoulders. “Some people never learn. You know, I’ve 
been uncommonly gentle up to now. I could easily have 
spared myself a lot of trouble by—er—disposing of 
you at once, as some of my associates suggested at the 
time. You would never have known what hit you, and 
there wouldn’t have been all this waste of time and talk 
—though if it amuses you, I’m satisfied.” 

“M-m-m, I suppose I ought to be thankful to you for 
that,” said Val. “I guess it wasn’t very convenient for 
you to put me out of the way at the time, or you would 
have done it.” 

“Well, never mind that,” put in Teck. “We’re wast¬ 
ing a lot of time and-” 

“At present,” said Val, “time is- 

“A lot of time, and there are many things I have 
to do before I leave this evening,” went on Teck 
placidly. 

“Leave this evening—where are you going?” asked 
Val curiously. 

The other looked at him. “Of course, strictly speak¬ 
ing, it is scarcely any of your business,” he said. My 
movements do not concern you in any way but con¬ 
sidering the fact that by this evening you will be defi- 





154 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


nitely removed from this matter one way or another, I 
don’t mind telling you that I am going to join Miss 
Pomeroy.” 

“Join Miss Pomeroy?” queried Val. “Why, isn’t 
Miss Pomeroy in the city at present-” 

“That’s as may be,” said Teck. “At any rate, I’m 
going to join Miss Pomeroy, who, I may say, is await¬ 
ing me impatiently. I don’t suppose it will interest you 
to know that we intend to marry this week—perhaps 
tomorrow, if possible- 

“Iggy, why try those clumsy lies on me?” protested 
Val. ^‘It happens that I saw Miss Pomeroy last night, 
as undoubtedly you are aware, and she said nothing 
that would lead me to believe-” 

“There’s nothing surprising about that, my good 
man,” said Teck patiently. “You see, she didn’t know 
it herself at the time. In fact, she doesn’t know it yet; 
but it’s going to happen just the same.” 

“Marry you!” ejaculated Val, looking at him inter¬ 
estedly. 

“Yes, me!” said Teck heatedly, his greenish eyes 
showing the first trace of anger they had shown during 
the conversation. “Why not?” 

‘Well, if you don’t know why not, Iggy, I guess 
there’s no use arguing with you. All I have to say is 
that you’ll marry Miss Pomeroy about the same time 
the Kaiser takes Chicago—or perhaps a trifle later 
than that.” 

“That remains to be seen,” retorted Teck, angrily. 
“Not that you’ll be here to see it, either.” 

“There’s one thing that puzzles me, Iggy,” said Val. 
“It’s about those books. What is there about them 
that makes it so important for you to get posses- 






FATAL ORDERS 


155 


^‘That’s none of your business,’’ snapped Teck, ugly 
and out of temper suddenly. “What I want to know is 
whether you will do as I ask—promise me that you 
will-” 

“I will not,” said Val. “Get that idea out of your 
head. Under no circumstances will I make any such 
promises.” 

“Do you understand that I actually mean to do 
what I said.f^ That I will-” 

“I suppose so,” said Val. “I think you’re capable 
of anything, even that. Why are you so anxious to 
get rid of me, though.? So anxious that you’ll even 
commit murder-” 

“Why, you’re in my way, that’s all. Even you 
ought to be able to see that, it’s so plain. But I’m not 
going to argue with you any more. I have a great deal 
to attend to, and I’d better start on it. I’ll be back 
about noon—you’d better think things over pretty 
carefully until then, and give me the answer I want.” 

“If I’m here by then,” put in Val. 

“You’ll be here. Oh, Rat 1” he called. A giant of 
a man showed himself at the door and glared malevol¬ 
ently at Val. “All right,” directed Teck. The guard 
withdrew. “I just wanted you to know that there is 
somebody here looking out for you, while O’Hara 
sleeps. He has orders to prevent your escape at any 
cost. So don’t try anything queer-—take my advice. 
He’s short tempered, and an occasional bumping-off 
means nothing in his young life. In fact, between him 
and O’Hara, I imagine they’d be rather glad of a 
chance to do you in, to pay you for that rumpus last 
night. Take it easy while I’m gone, and think it over 
pretty carefully.” 




XIX 


VAL WAXES OBSTINATE 

There was little else Val could do, besides ^‘think 
it over pretty carefully” while Ignace Teck was gone. 
He could see all of the room from the couch on which 
he lay, and he inspected it carefully. It was an ordi¬ 
nary bedroom. At one end of the room, at a blank 
wall, was a walnut bed. On the other blank wall, op¬ 
posite the only window, was the couch. At the south 
end was the door leading into the living room, where he 
could hear the guard addressed as Rat stirring oc¬ 
casionally. Near that end of the room was a small 
table. 

There was no entrance to the room but the door, 
and Rat was outside that, though Val was grateful 
that he did not choose to sit in the same room with 
him. He reflected that probably the other cared as 
little for his company as he cared for that of the Rat. 
The window was just an ordinary window, with no fire- 
escape outside it. It provided no mode of ready en¬ 
trance or egress that Val could see. The window was 
closed its full length, though not locked, as Val could 
see from where he lay. There was no reason for lock¬ 
ing it, evidently. 

Next Val gave his attention to the cord that bound 
him. He found little here that was of any comfort to 
him. He was bound tightly, and it took very little time 
156 


VAL WAXES OBSTINATE 


157 


for him to discover that he would not be able to undo 
his bonds. The cords were on for keeps, and Val 
imagined that they would stay on until somebody took 
them off. He was helpless on the couch, with his hands 
bound behind his back and his feet closely tied. There 
was no hope there. 

As time dragged on he grew thirstier and thirstier. 
His tongue and throat began to feel furry, and though 
he would have enjoyed breakfast, yet would he have 
appreciated a drink still more. Perhaps the guard in 
the next room— 

‘‘Hey, Rat,” he called. 

The big form of the tough bulked in the doorway, 

“Whatcher want?” he growled at Val. 

“Pm awfully thirsty—would you be good enough to 
get me a glasr; of water?” Perhaps the guard had not 
been told that he was to receive no sustenance of any 
sort. 

“Better make it champagne, young fellow,” sug¬ 
gested Rat with heavy sarcasm. “You got just as 
much chanct of gettin’ dat, see!” He spread his right 
hand flat, indicating that the interview, insofar as he 
was concerned, was finished. 

“It might be worth your while. Rat,” insinuated Val. 
“I’m not mentioning any names, but if anybody around 
here gives me a helping hand so that I can get out, 
why, that man won’t have to do any work for the rest 
of the year.” He looked at Rat significantly. 

It did not work. The other shook his head vigor¬ 
ously. 

“I don’t never work, anyway,” he growled. “An’ 
don’t run away wit’ no idea that anybody around 
here’ll give you a lift. Me, I’d like to bump you off, 
myself, after that there bash on th’ dome you gimme 


158 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


last night. If I had my way, I’^d knock yer fer a row 
a’ red, white an^ blue barber poles, git 

Val nodded. “I think I perceive what youVe trying 
to tell me, rat face,” said Val. “You mean that you 
won’t give me a drink of water, don’t you.?” 

“Dead right, kid,” exclaimed the guard. “An’ don’t 
try that bribe stuff on me or anyone around here agen. 
I might git insulted an’ pop yer one on th’ bean, see!” 

“Is it possible?” retorted Val. 

“Don’t git sarcastical, young feller,” said Rat. 
“You’ll soon find out if it’s possible to insult me, if yer 
keep it up. I’m goin’ out, now an’ I don’t want to be 
bothered. If I have to come in agen to yer. I’ll put yer 
where ya kin hear the boidies sing.” 

With dignity he withdrew. 

Val had to smile, in spite of his disappointment. 
That little sally of his last night had really done him a 
great deal of harm, he reflected. It had earned him the 
enmity of his guards, who, under ordinary circum¬ 
stances, might have been amenable to a bribe. 

As for Teck, he was not afraid of him, nor of his 
threats, for the simple reason that he did not think 
that even he would dare to carry them into execution. 
It is one thing to threaten to kill a man, and it is still 
another to proceed to carry out said threat in cold 
blood. Not that he did not think Teck capable of 
murder; far from that. But he did think that the 
project was too dangerous, even for Teck. For that 
reason he resolved to stick it out. Teck would bring 
pressure to bear—he was sure of that—^but he was also 
sure that Teck would stop at murder. 

It was easy to see why Teck wanted him out of the 
way. In the first place, he was a disturbing element in 
an affair that was going the way Teck wanted it to go. 


VAL WAXES OBSTINATE 


159 


until he entered. With Val in the ring, Miss Pomeroy 
was able to put up a stiffer resistance to the importuni¬ 
ties of the handless one. It was plain that she did not 
wish to marry Teck; it was also plain that she was 
afraid of him. It was fear, in addition to her feeling 
of gratitude to the man, that had led her to promise 
that she would marry him, Val decided. 

And then there was the money. Evidently Teck had 
a shrewd idea as to its approximate whereabouts.. 
Alone he would be able to hunt for it at his leisure; 
finding it, he would be in a masterful position as re¬ 
gards Miss Pomeroy. He could see already that the 
lady was taking far more interest in Val than the oc¬ 
casion—to him—seemed to warrant. Val was a dan¬ 
gerous rival and must be put out of the running. 
Hence his present position. 

But Valentine Morley had no intention of being put 
out of the running. He intended to force the pace, and 
once free from his present predicament—and he did 
not doubt that he would get free, of course—he in¬ 
tended to put Teck in his proper place. He might not 
have been in a position to take any such action previ¬ 
ously, but now that the mask had been flung away and 
Teck had come out openly as being desirous of his ex¬ 
tinction, Val considered he had authority to take action 
in his own right; this he intended to do. 

In the meantime, his greatest need was to get out of 
this room; to get away from the power of this man. 
Val was free to admit to himself that at the moment 
he did not see how this was to be accomplished. Alone 
he seemed to be powerless to do anything. 

Now, if only Eddie Hughes had any idea of his 
whereabouts ... if, say, Eddie became alarmed about 
his absence, there would be a chance. Eddie was a very 


160 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


canny citizen; one who could put two and two together 
and get the correct answer in addition most of the time. 
If it occurred to Eddie that there was anything strange 
in his employer’s absence—and such a thought was 
bound to occur to Eddie, because Valentine Morley was 
not in the habit of staying out in this manner—why, 
then there might be something doing, Val thought. 

And then there was Jessica Pomeroy! Where was 
she? He had gathered from Teck’s conversation that 
she had gone away somewhere. As he had seen her last 
night, he was rather under the impression that if she 
had indeed gone away in such haste, she had not done 
so of her own volition. That she knew anything of his 
present plight he indignantly rejected. Of course, the 
message he had received had purported to come from 
her, but he knew she was ignorant of the entire matter. 
He knew now that it was nothing but a ruse on the part 
of Teck—a simple ruse which he should have watched 
for, he told himself—^it was so obvious. ^ 

And indeed, had anybody but Jessica Pomeroy been 
involved, he would have been on his guard, because 
Valentine Morley was not the guileless young man that 
this chronicle has perhaps led observers to believe. But 
where Jessica Pomeroy was concerned all ordinary 
rules went by the board. Val simply lost his head 
when he thought about her—and there had, to him, 
been nothing strange in the fact that she should send 
for him in the middle of the night. Why not? He had 
told her to send for him if she needed him—and if she 
needed him in the middle of the night why, that was the 
time to send for hkn. It was all simple enough. 

But where would she go in such haste? That was 
the point to be decided, because by now he was firmly 
of the opinion that she needed him to protect her. If 


161 


VAL WAXES OBSTINATE 

she had not gone of her own volition, but had been 
forced, she surely needed him. Anyway, he was going 
to decide where she had gone, and he would follow 
on the chance that she would be glad to see him. It was 
worth while for him to try, because there was the 
chance of his being near her. That would be enough 
for him—just to be somewhere where Jessica Pomeroy 
was ; where he could see her and drink in the wine of her 
presence. That last phrase was his, and he was a little 
proud of it. The wine of her presence! Truly, it ran 
trippingly off the tongue. 

It was about noon when Val reached these con¬ 
clusions, and true to his promise Teck returned. He 
was not in good humor—^Val could see that. Val im¬ 
proved the shining moment. 

‘‘How about a drink, Iggy?’^ he asked innocuously. 

“Have you decided to promise what I asked of you.?’” 
inquired Teck in his turn. Val shook his head. 

“Then don’t worry about a drink, because you’ll 
need one still worse where you’re going from here,” 
Teck promised him blackly. 

“The latest authorities agree that there is no hell, 
except as one makes it for oneself on this earth,” said 
Val. “I am a little surprised to see that you still be¬ 
lieve in that obsolete place. It was a fiction invented 
for those-” 

“Well, unless you do what I ask you’re going to find 
out pretty soon whether or not there is a hell,” an¬ 
swered Teck. “I’m not inclined to stand any more non¬ 
sense from you.” He sat down at the table and re¬ 
garded his prisoner bleakly. 

“Got a smoke asked Val. 

The other nodded. “But not for you, my friend,” he 
said. He pressed his wrist to his vest pocket and a 



162 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


thin silver cigarette case leaped out. He opened it 
dexterously by pushing the catch, holding the case be¬ 
tween his two wrists as he did so. It was one of the 
kind of cases that hold the cigarettes upright in the 
middle. All he had to do now was to bend his head 
and grasp one of the wliite paper rolls between his lips. 
Next he pressed the opposite vest pocket and a thin 
lighter leaped out. 

The cap opened as Teck pressed the button on the 
side, shooting a thin blade of flame toward him. He 
lighted his cigarette and closed the lighter. For a 
moment he said nothing, inhaling the smoke luxuriously. 

‘‘Very clever,” commented Val. 

“You learn to do things for yourself after awhile,” 
remarked Teck. “Now, about this promise-” 

“How do you know that Fll keep my promise, any¬ 
way?” 

“Oh, you will. I know your kind,” Teck assured 
him. 

“I know, Iggy, but a promise obtained under duress 
is not valid, anyway,” Val protested. 

“I’^ll take my chance on that,” said Teck. He knew 
he was safe in that regard; Val was one of the class to 
whom a promise is a sacred thing, and Teck knew it. 
He was taking no chances, really, he considered. 

“I want a definite answer from you, Morley,” an¬ 
nounced Teck. “I^m leaving town this evening, and 
before I go you will have promised what I asked you, 
or you will no longer be in a position to promise any¬ 
thing. And don^t console yourself with the idea that 
I’m bluffing—^because if you call my bluff you won’t 
be here to find out whether you were right or wrong. 
You know what I’m referring to,” he said meaningly. 

“Don’t you know it’s bad form to end a sentence 



VAL WAXES OBSTINATE 


163 


with a preposition, Iggy. Where were you brung up, 
anyway?” Val inquired lightly. 

‘‘Never mind my grammar,” growled Teck, “I’d 
sooner make grammatical mistakes and be alive than be 
perfect—and dead.” 

“What pleasant ideas you have,” remarked Val. 

“I’m going out and I won’t return until this evening. 
I’ll look in then just to see whether you are ready to 
come across—and if you’re not, why. I’ll continue on 
my way—after handing you over to the tender mercies 
of Rat and O’Hara. And they’re not squeamish, 
either, I can assure you of that. And another 
thing-” 

“Good by, Iggy,” Val interrupted him, wriggling so 
that he was turned to the wall. 

The other regarded him evilly for a moment, turned 
on his heel and went out. 



XX 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 

Ale that long afternoon, between longing for a drink 
and frowning upon the clamor of his stomach, Val pon¬ 
dered the matter at issue. Would Teck actually carry 
out his threats? Was he bluffing? What would he 
really do when he became convinced that Val would not 
make the desired promises? 

Everything hinged on that. If Teck was bluffing— 
and Val was a little inclined to the belief that he was, 
it would be humiliating to Val not to call that bluff. 
If, on the other hand, he was in deadly earnest, Val 
stood to lose his life for a theory—the theory that 
Jessica Pomeroy wanted him to assist her—the theory 
that, perhaps, he would personally prove interesting 
enough to her to cause her to feel toward him the af¬ 
fection he already felt toward her. In other words, it 
was theoretically possible, Val thought, that he could 
teach her to love him. 

If he was wrong it was not of consequence at this 
moment, anyway, because life without her—he already 
knew—would not be worth the effort; it would simply 
be a waste of good years, empty and tasteless. If he 
promised what Ignace Teck wished him to promise, he 
would have to step out of her life for good; he would 
be bound, in honor, not to approach her again. 

But would he really be bound? Val turned this over 
in his mind for a long time. Is a man bound by a 
164 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 165 

promise obtained under threat of losing his life? Val 
did not think so—and yet, to him a promise was a 
sacred thing, something to be upheld at all costs^ 
whatever the circumstances surrounding the giving of 
it. He could not lightly make up his mind to violate 
his word, though he knew Teck was a scoundrel who 
meant no good to Jessica, a man towards whom it was 
not necessary to he honorable. 

Was there such a thing as being comparatively hon¬ 
orable? Were there shades of honor? Val had never 
thought so before. Either a thing was honorable—> 
either it was the sort of thing a gentleman could do— 
or it was not. That was all there was to it. But now 
he was face to face with another phase of honor; he 
discovered that, perhaps, there might be extenuating 
circumstances to accompany the breaking of a man’s 
word. 

It took a long time to get Val to this frame of mind, 
but he finally decided to stick it out as long as possible, 
and then, when he actually perceived that Teck or his 
associates really meant to put an end to his existence, 
to give in. He considered that such a promise was not 
binding; a promise of that sort made to a murderer 
and a scoundrel for the furtherance of his own nefari¬ 
ous plans, under threat of murder, was not the kind 
that a gentleman could be expected to keep. But he 
meant to wait until the last possible minute. 

Night was falling when Teck returned. With him 
came O’Hara, the horsefaced one. He bustled into the 
room, indicating that he had not a moment to waste. 
A glance at the couch sufficed to show him that Val was 
still there, and that he was awake. 

‘‘Light up, O’Hara,” directed Teck, and in obedience 
the man addressed lighted one of the gas jets. 


166 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘^All right; wait in the next room with Rat until I 
need you,” Teck told him, and with a look of malevolent 
hatred at the recumbent figure of Val, O’Hara withdrew 
to the next room, where he could be heard in low voice 
converse with Rat. 

Teck turned his attention to Val. 

‘‘Let’s end this for good,” he said. “I’m leaving 
town to-^night, and there are things I have to do before 
making my train, so I have only a few minutes to stay 
with you—much as I enjoy your company,” he said 
with, heavy sarcasm. 

“Oh, Iggy, don’t go,” implored Val. “Stay and play 
with me for a little while. Tuck me in before you go, 
anyway.” 

Teck frowned. Evidently this man before him did 
not realize the seriousness of his position; he could not 
realize that he stood on the brink of the grave—an 
unknown grave. 

“Listen,” he said angrily. “I’ve had enough of this 
damned foolishness. Never mind the compliments— 
let’s get down to business.” 

“Let’s,” answered Val, a trifle wearily. He felt the 
need of food and he would have given much for a few 
drops of water. He stored it all up in his mind for 
future reference; some day he would make this man 
pay for his discomfort. 

“I want to ask you, once and for all, whether you 
will do as I ask. No—don’t answer yet—wait till you 
hear what I have to say before you answer, because it’s 
going to be the last time. If your answer is no, I in¬ 
tend to leave at once—I am in a hurry. You will be 
left in the hands of O’Hara and Rat, both of whom 
would just as soon kill you as look at you—sooner, 
perhaps. They are to give you an hour of grace; if 


IN THE SHADOW OE THE GRAVE 167 

during that hour you make the promises I wish from 
you, they will free you; if not, you will be—er—^put 
away permanently at the end of the hour. I will be 
gone, so there will be no alternative. Either you say 
yes or you die. 

‘‘Your stand in the matter is a very foolish one. 
You can have no real personal interest in these things; 
I understand you never saw Miss Pomeroy until a very 
few days ago; you have only spoken twice to her. You 
are interfering in matters that really don^t concern 
you at all—and a continuance of such interference will 
cost you your life; in fact, a statement that you in¬ 
tend to continue your interference will cost you your 
life. I have plans of very great importance, things 
that mean more to me than you can imagine, and I 
will take no chances of any upset occurring through 
the interference of a romantic young fool like you— 
that is my reason for being so insistent. You have 
already seriously interfered with me several times, and 
Fll take no further chances for the reason that the 
next time you butt in it might be fatal to my own 
plans. Now, think carefully before you answer, be¬ 
cause I can hardly impress upon you too strongly that 
I am in deadly earnest—I mean every word I say. 
You are a young man, you have millions, you have 
everything to live for; take my advice, then, promise 
what I want, and go home and forget all about the 
matter.” 

“Pretty speech, Iggy. Do it some more,’^ com¬ 
mented Val softly. 

“Don’t get funny,” flashed Teck angrily back at him. 
“You’ll find out in a few minutes that there is nothing 
funny about it.” 

“I’ve told you my answer before this, Teck,” replied 


168 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


VaL “I haven’t changed my mind. Your mother must 
certainly have loved children, to bring you up,” he 
said irrelevantly. He had made up his mind to stick 
it out to the last minute, and evidently this was not yet 
the last minute. Pie still had an hour with Rat and 
O’Hara. Although he had made up his mind to break 
any promise he might make to Teck, yet he shrank 
from making any promise at all until there was abso¬ 
lutely no way out of it. Only in that way could he 
reconcile the thing with his inconvenient conscience. 

Teck flushed, the scar on his cheek glowing redly 
against his face. 

“Is that final?” he asked needlessly. He knew that, 
so far as he was concerned, it was final. 

^‘It’s damned final,” said Val. “Can’t you under¬ 
stand English?” 

Teck hesitated for a brief moment, his greenish eyes 
shining evilly at Val. Then his moment of hesitation 
was over. His decision was made. He turned to the 
door. 

“Rat! O’Hara 1” he called. 

These two worthies appeared promptly. 

have to get along, boys. Give this man an hour 
more to promise to do what I want. If he promises, 

let him go. If not-he accompanied this with a 

meaningful look, pregnant with wickedness—“you 
know.” 

“All right, boss,” replied O’Hara. “We gotcha.” 

“I’m oflP, said Teck, and the three withdrew to the 
next room without a backward look at their quarry. 
There they had a whispered conversation of which Val 
could make out nothing except one phrase—“Old Point 
Comfort.” This he heard repeated several times. 

He decided that probably Teck was on his way down 



IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 169 

to Virginia—and that Jessica Pomeroy was either 
down there already or on her way. Old Point Com¬ 
fort is very close to Norfolk and Hampton, near where 
Peter Pomeroy’s estate was. Undoubtedly Teck had 
information that led him to believe that the treasure 
was down there—perhaps hidden on the grounds of the 
Pomeroy property. 

In a few minutes there was the slamming of a door, 
and he knew that Teck was gone. The two guards con¬ 
sulted with each other in a whisper in the adjoining 
room, and it was not long before they seemed to come 
to some decision, because they entered VaPs room to¬ 
gether, on business bent. 

It was O’Hara who spoke first. 

‘‘Sorry you kinnot make that there promise, ole 
kid,” he said, almost jocularly, his one good eye gleam¬ 
ing wickedly, in humorous contradistinction to the 
tightly closed, swollen blue optic that accompanied it. 
“Because we gotta date, me’n Rat, so we’ll hafter hurry 
t’ings along er little.” 

“I didn’t tell you I wouldn’t promise, Horseface,” re¬ 
torted Val. He intended to make the promise, but he 
intended to wait the full hour before doing it. 

“Oh, sure yer did, old millionbucks.” O’Hara as¬ 
sured him. “Me’n me pal decided yer did. Yer too 
good ter live, anyway. Me’n Rat, here, we don’t like 
yer face, see! So we’re goin’ ter put it where it won’t 
bother us none. VV^e gotta date. Open yer trap,” he 
directed. 

“What for?” asked Val. 

“Well, th’ proceedings is about ter begin—an’ we 
don’t want no holler outta you, so I’m goin’ ter stick 
something inter yer mout’ that’ll stop th’ noise,” an¬ 
swered O’Hara. 


170 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“But look here, do you really mean to go on with 
this?” answered Val, alarmed for the first time. It 
occurred to him that these men had no wish to exact a 
promise from him. They simply wanted to kill him 
and get done with the affair. It might seem that the 
black eye he had given O^Hara was not sufficient cause 
for such vengeance as the horsefaced one intended to 
exact, but these things are merely relative. To a man 
of O’Hara’s disposition a black eye was provocative 
to murder. That was his code, and as long as he was 
in power there was no one to say him nay. This flashed 
across Val’s mind, and he saw that he was on distinctly 
dangerous ground. It would be well to give in at once. 

“You don’t really mean-” his speech was shut off 

by O’Hara’s thumb on his windpipe, pressing until 
things were almost black in front of Val’s eyes. He 
opened his mouth, gasping for breath. 

“That’s it, kid,” said O’Hara, popping a gag into 
his mouth and tying it around the back of his head 
tightly. 

Trussed hand and foot, and gagged, Val looked up 
at the pair helplessly. 

“Pretty little t’ing, ain’t he?” asked Rat. 

‘Weah. Too bad he’s gotta shuffle off so young. 
Well, it’s ther way of all flesh in dis here vale er 
tears.” 

The world went black in front of Val’s eyes for a 
moment. This was something he had not looked for. 
This pair of scoundrels actually intended to put an end 
to his life at once. Up to now it had been more or 
less of a game to Val, because he knew that he had but 
to say the word, and he would be released. But things 
had suddenly got out of hand even more than Teck 



IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 171 


himself had intended. These two men did not mean to 
give him a chance to promise anything. They simply 
intended to finish him and be done with it. 

For the first time a twinge of fear passed through 
Val. It was one thing to get killed in the trenches, and 
he had seen many die on all sides of him; it was still 
another thing to be murdered in cold blood by a pair 
of murderers who seemed to look upon the matter as a 
joke. 

“Say yer prayers, dearie,” mocked O’Hara, “Win¬ 
dow closed?” he asked Rat. 

“Yep. Door closes tight enough, I guess.” 

“Sure t’ing. Only takes a few minnits to put dis 
bird outta his misery.” 

Val looked up at them impotently. So this was to 
be the end for him. He could hardly believe it, and 
yet—it did not seem as though there was any way out. 
Black despair edged into his heart, and shaded its way 
across his face. He was helpless; he was theirs to do 
with as they pleased. He tried to look at things 
stoically, but it was hard. He felt that he could die 
easily, fighting, but this way, a rat in a trap—it was 
too much to expect a man to bear that stoically. 

Momentarily terror struck its way deep into his 
soul; it was a fearsome way to die—to die thus delib¬ 
erately and slowly, conscious that he was dying, yet 
with no kind of a chance of saving himself. He sur¬ 
mised the method of execution—illuminating gas. An 
eternity went by as he lay there watching them in this 
last moment, yet in reality it was but a few seconds. 

“All set?” queried O’Hara. The other nodded. 
“Let’s go.” 

He reached up and turned on the cock of the un- 


172 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


lighted gas jet. He turned out the lighted one and 
turned that on again. To VaPs strained ears came a 
slight hissing, faintly like escaping steam. 

“Good night, pretty boy,’^ mocked O’Hara. 

They went out and closed the door tightly. 

A pungent, sweetish odor, the odor of illuminating 
gas, came to VaPs nostrils. With the closing of the 
door the first thought that came to Valentine Morley 
was that he was dying. He was young, healthy, in full 
possession of his senses, yet in a few moments this body 
of which he was so conscious would be a senseless piece 
of clay, unfeeling and cold. He was dying. With each 
breath he came closer and closer to death and yet he 
could not stop breathing. 

In sudden moments like this, hopeless moments, it 
has been said that all a man’s past life is reviewed by 
him swiftly, kaleidoscopically. Yet it was not so with 
Val. 

One thought only* was in his mind, and that is the 
thought that he was dying, while in the next room two 
men waited to enter and drag out his body when all 
was over. He felt himself getting weaker and weaker, 
and he knew it was but a question of minutes. This 
was the end of Valentine Morley, the man who had 
wanted to marry Jessica Pomeroy. It was the end of 
a man who had held life lightly, only to find at the last 
that he desired life above all things. 

His mind was remarkably clear, he thought, and he 
found it curious that he did not lose consciousness. 
Yet he knew he was dying. He seemed to be falling, 
falling, falling . . . swiftly, as in a dream. Down 
. . . down . . . down. . . . 

He came to himself with a jerk. Against the window 
pane opposite his couch a dark form pressed ... a 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 173 


face that peered in. He longed to shout, but his gag 
prevented him. So he was not yet dead! He wondered 
why—he should be, by now, he decided. He looked at 
the window pane again. 

The face was still there. Quietly the figure outside 
the window put forth an arm and raised the window, 
softly, noiselessly. Just as noiselessly he let himself 
into the room, moving like a ghost. He flashed his 
pocket flashlight on the figure of Val on the couch. 

“All right, Mr. Morley,’^ he whispered softly, and a 
great pean of thanksgiving burst out in the heart of 
Val. It was the voice of Eddie Hughes 1 

Eddie whipped out his knife and cut the gag. “The 
gas, Eddie!’’ whispered Val sibilantly. “It’s on!” 

Swiftly Eddie turned off the two jets. 

There was a stirring in the next room. A hand was 
laid on the door. Like a shadow Eddie leaped to the^ 
door, standing behind it. The door opened, letting a 
stream of light into the room. 

“Oughtta be all over by now,” came the voice of 
O’Hara as he and the Rat stepped in. don’t smell 
no-” 

With a groan he slumped down on the floor in a 
heap, dead to a heedless world. The butt of Eddie’s 
automatic had found its mark. The other whirled 
only to look down the barrel of Eddie’s gun. 

“Stick ’em up!” grated Eddie. 

The other’s hands shot toward the ceiling. 

“Attaboy!” applauded Val from his couch. ^‘Cut 
me loose, will you, Eddie. I’m tired of staying here.” 

“Just a sec, Mr. Morley,” said Eddie. “Hey, you,” 
he said to his prisoner, “untie those cords—an’ don’t 
try nothing funny, either—or it’ll be your last joke.” 

Impelled by the ominous blue black automatic, the 



174 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


Rat did as he was bid. Awkwardly Val arose and 
stretched himself. There was almost no feeling in his 
right leg, and he felt weak and wobbly. 

“Funny I’m not dead.?^” he said. “I must’ve inhaled 
enough gas to kill half a dozen men. And yet—there 
didn’t seem to be so much gas at that, Eddie. Wait a 
minute.” He took a match out of his pocket and at¬ 
tempted to light the gas jet over his head. 

It did not light. He tried the other. That did not 
light, either. 

“That’s funny,” he mused. ^‘Here, let’s have the 
gat, Eddie—I’ll cover him and you tie him up.” 

This was done, and, tightly gagged, the Rat was laid 
on the couch, mystified and hardly yet understanding 
what had happened. 

“Queer about that gas,” remarked Val. “Yet, I 
don’t smell much of it in the room-” 

“Nothing funny about it at all,” remarked Eddie, 
pointing to a meter. “Do you see that.?” Val nodded. 

“That’s a quarter meter,” Eddie enlightened him. 
“You put in a quarter and when it is used up the gas 
goes out and stays out until you put in another quar¬ 
ter. Probably these two rooms used to be rented 
separately, so they have separate meters.” 

“Well, I’ll be. . . burst out Val. His life had 
been saved by the fact that nobody had thought about 
putting a quarter into the meter—and the last quarter 
had been about used up. Evidently the supply of gas 
had given out almost immediately after the cock was 
turned on. 

“How did you-” Val began, turning to Eddie. 

“Never mind that now,” said Eddie. “Let’s get out 
of here first. Follow me.” 

He led the way through the outer room to the hall. 



IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAVE 175 

‘‘Can’t go down-stairs, because there’s a couple of them 
on duty there. Can’t get out the way I came in—^by 
the waterpipe. Sure to get caught. Let’s try up¬ 
stairs—the roof.” 

Quietly they made their way through the dark halls 
till they came to a ladder that led to the roof. Eddie 
mounted it first and pushed up the door. 

“O. K.,” he announced. “Come on.” 

• •••••• 

Ignace Teck, feeling in rather good humor with him¬ 
self and the world, watched the train pull out of the 
station from the smoking room of the Pullman, where 
he sat, hands in his pockets, his mind at rest. He need 
no longer worry about Valentine Morley—he was out 
of it for good now, one way or the other. Since Mor¬ 
ley had come into the affair, Jessica’s resistance to him, 
passive before and not very strong, had stiffened a 
great deal. 

He made no bones about the fact that he was afraid 
of what Morley could do; Morley, a good natured 
meddler, seemingly afraid of nothing, could knock all 
of his plans into a cocked hat. But that was over. 
Valentine Morley was put out of the way—either by 
his promise or by Teck’s two henchmen. Teck knew 
them; they were not the kind to balk at murder, and 
it had seemed to him that they rather fancied the idea 
of this job. They had no love for Valentine Morley. 

Well, that was over. He was on his way to Vir¬ 
ginia, where Jessica was, and where, perhaps. A 

pleased smile curved its way across his dark counte¬ 
nance as he thought about what he could do with all 
that money . . . and Jessica . . . she was worth 
while in herself. A few more days of Morley, he ad- 


176 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


mitted good naturedly, and he might not have felt so 
sure of her. 

As he gazed out of the window a man came into the 
smoking compartment and sat down next to Teck. 

“Hello, Iggy! S’prise 1’^ said a pleasant voice. 

Teck whirled swiftly. Next to him sat Valentine 
Morley. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE SIGHT OF HOME 

It was almost noon when Jessica Pomeroy and 
Elizabeth arrived at the Pomeroy property, about mid¬ 
way between Hampton and Newport News. Germinal 
Washington, an old negro who had been in the service 
of her father and whom Jessica had picked up on land¬ 
ing at Old Point Comfort, had stopped off at Hampton 
to bring along needed groceries and other living neces¬ 
sities in his trap, drawn by the rawboned, halting 
quadruped that he fondly conceived was a horse. 

Jessica and the old woman retainer, Elizabeth, had 
continued their way on foot for the additional two and 
a half or three miles to the Pomeroy estate. Both of 
them knew the way well, and every foot of the road was 
reminiscent of ancient memories to both of them. It 
was early autumn in Virginia; the way was a riot of 
color and breeze, winding away yellowly in the direc¬ 
tion of the hills like a sinuous snake headed for the sun¬ 
set. The road was dry and hard, a perfect highway 
for the millions of colored leaves that fled before the 
wind. In front of their feet a scared rabbit scudded 
from one side of the path to the other, to lose himself 
instantly in the underbrush. A red-bellied woodpecker 
looked at the passersby speculatively an instant, to 
fly off at last in haste and violent indignation at this 
unwarranted intrusion. 


177 


178 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


It was plain that the way was not much traveled, 
although Jessica knew that without looking. A car 
line ran from Hampton to Newport News. There is 
nothing between these two cities, if a few solitary farms 
be excepted, farms that are reached by another road. 
This road led only to the Pomeroy property and no¬ 
where else, which was the reason for old Peter Pome¬ 
roy’s locating there. He liked solitude, especially when 
certain horses were to be tried out. In this spot there 
would be nobody who did not have special business 
there. Pomeroy had found that he liked horses better 
than he did men—and having an intimate knowledge 
of both, probably he had good reason. 

With the exception of Germinal Washington, who 
had spent many years there, it would have been diffi¬ 
cult to induce a negro to go near the Pomeroy grounds 

and even Germinal would, under no circumstances, 
approach the old house itself. It was said, on good 
local authority, that the place was haunted. Screams 
had been heard there late at night; lights blew out 
suddenly; there was the clanking of chains; all the 
good old supernatural standbys were “present or ac¬ 
counted for,” to lapse for an instant into army phrase¬ 
ology ; long, thin ghosts pointing lean, skinny fingers 
were said to have been seen. At any rate, the Pomeroy 
house was haunted, and it was only upon being as¬ 
sured that Jessica and her servant intended to inhabit 
the caretaker’s lodge that Germinal consented to be¬ 
come a member of the party. He liked Jessica Pome¬ 
roy, having known her since she was a baby; but these 
ghosts seemed to have a certain preference for black 
men. . . . 

The small, compact lodge, of course, would be better 
for two unattached women. In the first place, it was 


THE SIGHT OF HOME 


179 


completely furnished, though very probably in sad 
need of a dusting. On the other hand, the large house 
had been denuded of most of its furniture many years 
before. The caretaker had stayed on in the lodge until 
last year, after Peter Pomeroy’s death. There was 
another cottage on the property which Peter Pomeroy 
and his daughter had sometimes used, but this had 
fallen of late years into complete disrepair, and there 
was no furniture of any kind in it now. During the 
last year or two of the old man’s life he and his daugh¬ 
ter had lived in the caretaker’s lodge on their infre¬ 
quent visits to Virginia. 

The wayfarers stood for a moment on the last ridge 
that divided the Pomeroy land from the rest of Vir¬ 
ginia. On the crest of that ridge her slight figure out¬ 
lined against the sky, bonnet in her hand, her light 
hair blowing back from her forehead, Jessica was a 
modern maenad gazing upon her homeland. They 
stood there for a space in silence. Below them was the 
rude brown oval of the private racetrack that Pomeroy 
had built. At the far end stood the gaunt, bare house 
that had, in the years long past, been the only home 
she knew, and at the near end was the small, neat look¬ 
ing house where the caretaker had lived and where she 
now proposed to make her home for awhile. 

In the distance were the hills, nebulous in a purple 
haze of midday sunlight, shimmering in red and blue 
and gold under the brush wielded miraculously by 
Autumn, and near the lodge glistened the playing 
waters of a live brook. 

‘Tt’s like coming home from a far country, Eliza¬ 
beth,” she said at last. “No matter where you go, 
Elizabeth, there’s a thrill about coming home that-” 

“I wonder if the plumbing still works,” grumbled the 



180 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


materialistic Elizabeth. ‘Tt wasn’t never none too 
good, anyway, and now that we’ve been away such a 
time——” 

‘‘Oh, stop your grumbling,” interjected Jessica. 
‘‘Haven’t you any sentiment for the old home-” 

“Well, plumbing’s a very important thing. Miss Jes¬ 
sica,” said the old woman, “an’ there can’t be much 
sentiment if the water supply is bad on account of de¬ 
fective plumbing^- 

“All right, you old grouch,” said Jessica. “You’ve 
robbed me of the first moment of pleasure I’ve had 
since we started. Let’s go down to the house and see 
whether your old plumbing works.” 

“I don’t see what you wanted to come back here for, 
anyway,” said the old servitor as they started for the 
house. “Especially since that devil Teck is coming 
here too. You always said that you wouldn’t come 
here while he-” 

“I hardly know why myself, Elizabeth,” said Jessica, 
a trifle wearily. “I know I had absolutely no intention 
of coming here at this time.” 

“Then why do you do it.?” 

“I don’t know, I’m sure. Only sometimes, when he 
catches me with those green eyes of his, I seem to be 
robbed of all my will power. Some outside will—his 
own will, I suppose—just flows into me and seems to fill 
me up, forcing me to do things that I never supposed 
I would do. It used to be that way when I was a little 
girl, Elizabeth. All he used to have to do was just to 
look at me steadily—right into my eyes—and I would 
do anything he asked me. I thought it was just be¬ 
cause I was a little girl and his was a stronger will— 
but now ... I don’t know ... I suppose he still has 






THE SIGHT OF HOME 


181 


the stronger will. Elizabeth, did you ever look right 
into those green eyes of his.^’^ 

The older woman looked at her for a moment. ‘‘No,” 
she said at length. “Ain’t never had no reason to— 
but if he ever tries it on me I’ll crown him Queen of 
the May—^with a frying pan.” 

“Do you think there’s anything in mental suggestion, 
Elizabeth?” asked the girl, more to be saying some¬ 
thing than because she expected a reasonable answer. 

“Not so long’s I have a good grip on a flatiron—a 
heavy one—and power in me right arm. Miss Jessica. 
There never was no mental suggestion that could stand 
up against a good wallop behind the ear. Try it the 
next time he gets around you with them there green 
eyes. You’ll see. Miss Jessica-” 

Jessica laughed, her good humor restored. “That’s 
no way to be talking about my future husband, Eliza¬ 
beth.” 

The other looked up in astonishment. “Surely, Miss 
Jessica, you’re not thinking of marrying with that 
devil, are you, I want to tell you right now that I give 
notice, if you are. No money on earth could make 
me work in the same house with him. But you’re only 
joking, aren’t you. Miss Jessica? You would 
never-” 

“I don’t know, Elizabeth,” replied Jessica slowly. 
“Sometimes I think I’ll just have to—you know, I 
sort of feel myself going . . . going . . . going . . . 
and then I wake up suddenly and I see that I never 
could do it. But one of these days. . . .” 

“I wonder what Mr. Morley is doing to-day,” won¬ 
dered Elizabeth, rather irrelevantly, it seemed to Jes¬ 
sica. 




182 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Why, what’s he got to do with it?” she asked. 

“Oh, nothing,” came back Elizabeth, meaningly. 
“Now, about that there plumbing. ...” So they 
went on, but a new twist had been given to Jessica’s 
train of thought. Why should she think of Valentine 
Morley now? And why should he, subconsciously, have 
been in her mind since she had started yesterday ? Why 
should she feel as though, somehow, she would be safer 
if he were somewhere near her? Probably he had al¬ 
ready forgotten her, she decided, after the rude man¬ 
ner in which she had broken up their little dinner party 
the night before. 

And yet ... if only he were here. Of course, he 
had said that she had but to call him, and he would 
come. But did men really mean such things when 
they said them? Would he actually come all the way 
down to Virginia just because she had called him? 
She was not sure of that; neither had she a reason for 
calling him, so far as she could see. She was in no 
danger; she was on her own property, in her own 
house. As for Teck, normally she was not afraid of 
him. It was only when he seemed to take possession 
of her, as last night, that she was afraid. Probably 
at this moment Mr. Morley was having lunch with.some 
New York society girl. 

Which was distinctly wrong, because at this moment 
Valentine Morley was lying, bound hand and foot, on a 
couch in Ignace Teck’s bedroom, very thirsty and very 
hungry—wondering where she was, and if he would 
ever see her again. Also, he was wondering if he would 
ever taste water again. 

They found the cottage in fair livable condition. 
Most of the furniture was still there, intact, though 
very dusty. There was a full complement of linen. 


THE SIGHT OF HOME 


183 


both bed and table linen. The cutlery, spoons, forks, 
etcetera, for the table, were rather sketchy, but they 
decided the equipment would be adequate enough. 

There were three bedrooms upstairs. Jessica made 
Elizabeth take herself the bedroom adjoining hers. 
These things being decided upon, the women started in 
to dust and to clean—superficially, at least, because 
it would have taken days, they decided, to give this 
house the cleaning it really deserved. However, they 
felt much better after the first layer of dust had been 
taken ojff. Now if Mr. Morley should happen by any 
chance to come avisiting. . . . 

Now why had Jessica thought of that? She smiled 
and shook her head, but could not say. All she knew 
was that it had suddenly popped into her head. And 
yet, why should he come . . . she had not sent for 
him ... in fact, how could she expect him to know 
where she was ? And yet, she had that feeling as though 
she would scarcely be surprised if the door opened and 
he walked in on her, smiling and glad to be there. In 
fact, she more or less expected it. 

She was downstairs in the living room, at the time, 
with a view of the front door through the little hall, 
diagonally, and the door did, in fact, open at this 
moment. Jessica started visibly, seized the towel 
that was bound about her head, rolled down her sleeves, 
threw the towel beneath the table, and gave two or 
three futile but distinctly feminine pats to her hair, 
all in the space of three quarters of a second, ^he 
door opened wider and admitted the visitor. 

Germinal Washington, staggering under a tremen¬ 
dous grocery basket, edged his way in, puffing but 
cheerful. 

^Thew!^’ he perspired orally and vocally. ‘‘Food 


184. THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


suttinly heavy. Some food. Where at this stuff go, 
Miz’ Jessica 

the kitchen of course, stupid,” snapped Jessica 
at him, though she was forced to admit, mentally, that 
it wasn’t poor Germinal’s fault that he was not Valen¬ 
tine Morley. 

Lunch, as cooked by Elizabeth and served by Ger¬ 
minal, was a satisfying affair, and after it was over 
Jessica decided that she would be the better for a nap; 
they had traveled far and she was tired, though she 
felt it now for the first time. She told Elizabeth to 
take a nap for the rest of the afternoon, and retired 
to the pretty little room she had chosen for herself. 

Fully clothed she lay down on the bed and tried to 
compose her mind to sleep, but it would not come. She 
could not help thinking of the queer circumstance of 
her being here at this time. Yesterday, at this hour, 
she had no thought of Virginia, and to-day she was 
here. ... It was peculiar. 

Why had she done as Ignace Teck required? Was 
there something really in thought transference . . . 
mental suggestion . . . hypnotism? Those greenish 
eyes . . . they did take hold of one. 

And what did he expect to accomplish down here? 
That money of her father’s, now . . . did he really 
think it was hidden somewhere on this estate? And if 
it was, how did he propose to go about finding it? 
That brought her to the thought of the books. Per¬ 
haps they held the secret. Why not ? Her father had 
been queer, mentally, during the last few years of his 
life. There were those who insisted that he was not 
entirely sane . . . that he was a monamaniac on the 
score of his money. 

Perhaps that was so. If it was, there was nothing 


THE SIGHT OF HOME 


185 


very peculiar about his having hidden his wealth so 
. . . nor would she consider it out of the picture even 
to learn that he had made a cryptogram of the solu¬ 
tion to the puzzle . . . that he had hidden the answer 
somewhere in a book. But how to find it? 

The more Jessica pondered on the matter, the more 
she became convinced that there was a distinct pos¬ 
sibility that the money was hidden somewhere down 
here, on this great estate. In fact, a probability. If 
a man was trying to hide a great sum of money, where 
could he find a better place? Trust her father to think 
of that. Not that he wanted to die without letting his 
daughter know where the money was. He loved her, 
she knew, and he would be greatly grieved to know that 
she was in need of money. But he had this in common 
with all men—^he did not expect to die. Human be¬ 
ings, to a large extent, consider themselves immortal. 
That is, they can visualize death—of course, one must 
com.e to that in the end—^but somehow, it was some¬ 
thing that never happened to one personally. It was 
something that happens to everybody, death . . . but 
to one’s self. . . . That is one of the singular 
psychological twists that make the way of the life in-, 
surance agent very hard indeed. If old Peter Pom¬ 
eroy had thought that he was to die suddenly, he 
would have taken immediate steps to acquaint his 
daughter with the facts of the whereabouts of his 
money—always conceding, she murmured, that they 
were not mistaken, and that money really existed. 

So Jessica Pomeroy at length fell asleep. 


XXII 


THE WARNING 

Suppose you had conceived and put into execution a 
fine, holeproof, artistic little murder. Then, full of 
professional pride at the artistic and workmanlike fea¬ 
tures of the masterpiece, suppose you were sitting in 
a Pullman smoking room, relaxed from your labors, 
and more or less at peace with the world. Then sup¬ 
pose you had turned around suddenly and seen the sup¬ 
posed corpse, not decently dead, as any self-respecting 
corpse ought to be, but very much alive and full of 
pep, sitting down next to you. 

Suppose these things had happened to you—^how 
would you feel.?^ You would probably experience a wave 
of resentment against said live cadaver, to say nothing 
of overwhelming shocked surprise, wouldn^t you.^ 
That^s just the way Ignace Teck felt about it when 
he turned and saw the substantial—even pleasant— 
figure of Valentine Mofley easing itself into a seat next 
to him. 

This was not one of Ignace Teck’s important mur¬ 
ders, of course. Just a little gem he had thrown off 
in an idle moment, before proceeding to the greater 
work at hand. Nevertheless, it was exasperating for 
a (prospective) murderer to so far interfere with the 
workings of art as to refuse to be assassinated—^nay, 
even to follow Teck and mock him by the mere fact 
of his presence. 

These are the thoughts that passed through Teck’s 
186 


THE WARNING 


187 


head as he whirled and saw Val sitting next to him. 
Something of what he thought showed in his eyes, evi¬ 
dently, because Val regarded him with scarcely con¬ 
cealed amusement. 

“I’m not—er—in your way, Iggy, or anything like 
that, I hope,” he suggested. “Because if I am-” 

“But I thought you were-” 

“Iggy, I must deny that I have been killed. No 
matter how it pains me to have to say it, I am alive; 
I am forced to the conclusion that something must 
have happened to upset your plans. I wonder what 
it could have been.?” Val spoke confidentially, almost 
apologetically. 

The other regarded him in resentful silence for a few 
moments. Evidently he was not dead. Val read his 
thoughts. 

“No,” he shook his head. “I did not promise any¬ 
thing, either. I am sort of free lancing in treasure 
trove, to tell you the truth, Iggy.” He opened his 
cigarette case and lighted a cigarette for himself. 

“To show you I’m more generous with my cigarettes 
than you are, Iggy?” he said, and popped a cigarette 
between the parted lips of Teck. He held a light to 
the cigarette. Teck nodded his thanks. 

“To what do I owe the honor of your company.?” 
asked Teck, courteously, having by now recovered his 
composure. 

“To the fact that Horseface has an awful headache 
by now—where my man’s gun walloped him. Also to 
the fact that you were too stingy to put a quarter into 
the gas meter. You do things on too small a scale, 
Iggy. I hate to have to criticize a man’s business, but 
that’s what’s the trouble with you—you’re a piker. 
Now, a quarter more or less wouldn’t really have done 




188 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


you much harm. You would hardly feel the loss of 
it- 

‘^I don’^t know what you’re talking about, Morley,” 
interrupted Teck. ‘‘Or is this chatter of yours a sort 
of pitcher’s wind-up, limbering up your voice, so to 
speak, for the real- 

“It’s of no consequence, Desperate Desmond,” Val 
waved him aside with an airy motion. “By the way, 
can you tell me any real reason why I shouldn’t hand 
you over to the police?” 

“Who, me?” inquired Teck, pained that Val should 
even think of such a thing. “Why? Do you mean to 
insinuate that I had any connection with what you 
claim to have been an imprisonment in my apartment? 
My dear boy, you could never prove anything, don’t 
you realize that? Of course, I am speaking theoret¬ 
ically only, because I must deny emphatically that I 
know anything about the matter. You are a sentimen¬ 
tal young man. Why don’t you write your stories and 
try to sell them to the magazines? I can assure 
you- 

“I’m not talking of that, Iggy. That’s a score I 
intend to settle with you personally—nobody else can 
do it as well as I. I’m talking about poor old Mat 
Masterson. I know you murdered him, and I intend 
to have you pay the penalty- 

“Nonsense,” said Teck. “You can prove nothing of 
the sort. And even if you think you can-” 

“I don’t have to prove anything,” said Val. “All 
I have to do is to tell the police that you’re the bird 
who stole the books. After that it shouldn’ be so 
hard, even for our police.” 

“Well, why don’t you do it?” suggested Teck, un¬ 
concerned. 







THE WARNING 


189 


I^m sort of saving you up, Iggy- 

‘T must ask you again not to address me as Iggy. 

My name is Ignace-” began Teck with a trace of 

irritation. 

“You mean, on such short acquaintance?’^ asked 
Val. “That raises a rather fine point in etiquette, 
doesn’^t it? When do you know a man well enough, 
to call him by a diminutive of his name? On the other 
hand, how intimate ought you to be with a man before 
attempting to murder him? I don’t think one should 
do it at the first or second meeting, anyway—but, you 
see Iggy? what fine, technical points we will be involved 
in if we pursue this train of thought? To get back 
to the original theorem, why shouldn’t I hand you over 
to the police?” 

“Because,” said Teck, “if you hand me over to the 
police it will absolutely involve Jes——” 

“Nonsense, I’ve heard that argument before. Don’t 
bank on it too heavily. Murder is murder, and must 
be punished, no matter whom it involves,” replied Val. 
“Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps I would mind 
my own business and say nothing—although such an 
aflTair is the business of every citizen. But when I 
see you brazenly going down South to make more 
trouble—to attempt to steal from a poor, fatherless 
girl her inheritance—to say nothing of attempting to 
intimidate her into marrying you, it makes me angry 
enough to cast all consideration to the winds and hand 
you into custody. Miss Pomeroy will have no diffi¬ 
culty in clearing herself. And as for-” 

“And as for you, how will you clear yourself?” in¬ 
quired Teck calmly. “Remember, that you knew most 
of the facts the next day—^that you have known for 
some days now that I have the books—and you have 





190 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


said nothing to the police about it. It rather makes 
you an accessory after the fact, doesn’t it? There’s 
a penalty for that.” 

“I’m not worrying about my end of it, Iggy,” re¬ 
plied Val, though it occurred to him that Teck was 
probably correct. “All I have to say is that if I were 
you I’d get off this train at the first stop and go back 
to where I came from. Because I’m going to get 
you-” his eyes flashed with the first show of emo¬ 

tion during the conversation, “and I’m going to get 
you right. You’re going to go to the chair if it takes 
every nickel I have to convict you—and as for Miss 
Pomeroy, you’d better lay off any ideas you may have 
about getting her money—to say nothing about marry¬ 
ing her. You—marry that girl 1” He looked his con¬ 
tempt and Teck had the grace to flush, though his 
flush was called out by anger and not by shame. 

“Well, we’ll see about that, Morley. And now, as 
long as there are warnings being handed out, I want 
to tell you that the next time you interfere with me 
in any way there’ll be no such blundering as happened 
the last time. I want to tell you—straight—that 
you’d better not butt into this affair. It’s none of 
your business and-” 

Val laughed. “You should get the police to protect 
you in the peaceful pursuit of your business, Iggy. 
You’ve got nerve enough, too. And don’t run away 
with the notion that I’m going home, either. I’m 
going down to where Miss Pomeroy is—and I’m going 
to stay there until she tells me to go. And now . . .” 
he rose and threw away the fag end of his cigarette, 
“I’m going to turn in. I advise you not to be within 
reaching distance to-morrow morning.” 




xxin 


ON FAMILIAR GROUND 

That Ignace Teck should go down south to hunt for 
the missing money was logical, Val pondered. That, 
of course, would probably be its hiding place. But 
that Miss Jessica Pomeroy should go down at the same 
time—he could hardly reconcile that. 

Unless, of course, she had not gone of her own 
volition. Which was very probable, he considered. 
Teck, he was sure, would not feel quite easy in his 
mind if he, Val, had a clear field with Jessica while 
Teck was away. Val knew that Teck was very well 
aware that, given a little time, he could easily win 
Jessica away from him. It would have been a strateg¬ 
ical error that Ignace Teck would hardly be guilty 
of. That being the case, Val could hardly be amazed 
at Teck’s anger to find that Val was coming down to 
Virginia, too. He must have seemed to Teck—^he 
grinned at the remembrance—^like a Little Old Man 
of the Sea. 

Nevertheless, Val spent a restful night in his lower 
berth—and Eddie in his upper managed to get sufficient 
sleep, too. They were awakened the next morning be¬ 
fore the train pulled into Cape Charles, the end of that 
branch line and the point of embarkation for Old 
Point Comfort, across Chesapeake Bay. 

In the bustle of baggage and travelers, they caught 
only one glimpse of Teck—on the boat just before it 
191 


192 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


steamed in to Old Point Comfort, in. the lee of the 
great, rambling Hotel Chamberlin. 

It was a bright sunny morning, and Val, leaning 
against the rail of the steamer, with Eddie standing 
just behind him, enjoyed the sail thoroughly. Chesa¬ 
peake Bay had never been so sparkling, so calm; and 
to the right, in the distance, the grim, sullen guns of 
Fortress Monroe brooded over the Bay and Hampton 
Roads, powerful, menacing and silent; here and there 
an impertinent three-inch gun showed its black shield 
and saucy muzzle. Far over towards Lynhaven Straits 
is Fort Wool, and towards Norfolk is the narrow strip 
of land dignified by the name of Willoughby Spit, a 
four mile splinter of Virginia sand that at no place is 
so broad that one could not stand in its center and 
throw a half brick into the waters on either side. 

It awoke memories in Val. During the early days 
of the war he had been stationed at*the Officers’ Train¬ 
ing School at Fortress Monroe—the school of the big 
guns. But Fortress Monroe, and Old Point Com¬ 
fort on a sunny day, approached from the sea—these 
are not things to forget quickly. Val’s blood quickened 
as, far inland, he caught a sudden glimpse of the 
parade ground, bordered by the old brown and red 
brick barracks; to the right of that Battery Parrott 
reared its menacing bastion, and further inland he 
knew exactly where the mortar batteries were sta¬ 
tioned, great black steel bulldogs that yawned at the 
sky and threatened the stars. 

In the foreground was the Hotel Chamberlin, which 
Val decided to make his headquarters. 

It was only a few minutes’ ride from Hampton, near 
where the Pomeroy estate was, he knew; it should be 
central enough for all his activities. He looked to- 


ON FAMILIAR GROUND 


193 


ward the fort, and from where he stood he could just 
catch a glimpse of Jeff Davis’s tree on the parade 
ground, a great, shady bulk, dignified in its size and 
its age. He caught himself humming a snatch of the 
training camp song: 

Black Jack Pershing sez, sez ’e, 

“Send along another batch a’ Coast Artiller-ee- 

Roarious! Roarious! 

We’ll make the Coast Artill’ry glorious: 

Fill ’er up with shell 

An’ we’ll give the beggars hell 

As we drive the-out of France! 

His blood quickened as he stepped on the familiar 
dock. 

“To the Chamberlin, Eddie,” he directed, as Eddie 
grasped their two suitcases. “Squads right! Column 
left I March!” 

Eddie grinned and executed the movements, pre¬ 
tending that Val was an officer. It pleased him to re¬ 
member, however, that Val was no more an officer than 
he himself was—before finishing his course Val had 
been ordered to France as part of a replacement bat¬ 
talion in the trench mortar corps. It was there he met 
Eddie—one night in a shell hole, where they had 
cemented their friendship in cold, soggy “canned 
willie” and rather muddy water—^water that was suit¬ 
able for drinking, perhaps, but certainly not for 
bathing. 

There was a crowd registering at the desk, and Val 
and Eddie held back until it thinned out a bit. When 
Val registered he looked the page of the register over 
carefully. Four names above his was the name of 
Ignace Teck—room three hundred and thirty. Val 
and Eddie were assigned rooms three fifty-five and six, 
on the same floor, which suited Val well. 



194 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


Both rooms, he found, opened on a porch which ran 
the whole of the seaward length of the house. French 
windows, opening outwards, gave access to this sun- 
porch. After a brief inspection, Val left Eddie to 
open the suitcases and distribute their clothes in the 
closets while he went downstairs to reconnoiter. 

In front of the hotel he found a decrepit, ancient 
touring car, labeled ^‘For Hire.’’ The driver lounged 
in the seat, but he snapped to attention as Val 
approached. 

“How much?” asked Val. 

“Four dollars an hour.” 

“I mean for a week—I want to drive it myself,” 
replied Val. 

The owner considered for a moment. “Cost you a 
hundred an’ seventy-five bucks,” he announced at 
length. “How do I know you won’t damage the car?” 

“You don’t know, young feller,” smiled Val. “But 
I’m paying twice as much as it’s worth, so you’re 
taking no chance. Get me?” 

“Where ya stoppin’?” asked the driver. 

“Chamberlin.” 

The preliminaries were arranged at the desk of the 
hotel, and in a few moments Val found himself in tem¬ 
porary possession of a touring car. He stood on the 
sidewalk for a moment, regarding the car intently. 
Now that he had a car, there was, of course, but one 
use to put it to. That is, to drive out to where Jessica 
was stopping. Of what other use is a car, anyway? 
There was no answer to this, so he hopped in and drove 
off, perkily, in the direction of Hampton, where he 
expected he would receive correct information as to 
the location of the Pomeroy house. 


XXIV 


‘‘to-night at the oed house 1” 

He found no difficulty in Hampton about being 
directed to the Pomeroy place. Everybody in Hamp¬ 
ton knew the place, and the instructions he received as 
to how to go about finding it were explicit, to say 
nothing of being verbose. 

He sent his car forward along the path indicated; 
it was a narrow path, and ordinarily a car would have 
trouble there, but VaPs was not that kind of a car. 
He smiled at the platitude—“you can drive it in places 
where you could never get in with a big car”—and 
drove merrily on his way. Nobody had told him that 
Jessica was down here—^but if she was not down here 
then where was she? He hardly gave that end of it a 
thought, because all his theory and all his wishes 
proved conclusively to him that she was here. Wasn’t 
that glorious sunlight? And the blue haze that sur¬ 
rounded the tops of those distant hills—something 
splendid about that, wasn’t there? And the woods, 
and the chattering squirrels, and the leaves begin¬ 
ning to turn such gorgeous colors 1 Why, of course 
Jessica was down here. 

He thought, idly, about the hidden—or lost— 
Pomeroy money; but money in itself could not mean 
much to this modem Croesus, so the matter was not 
prominent at the moment in his mind. It gave place 
quickly to the peculiar glint of the sunlight that he 
195 


196 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


had noticed deep in the coils of Jessica’s hair. He 
liked that; there was nothing of the brazen chemistry 
about it that he always noticed in openly blonde hair, 
even though it was natural blonde; it was like the souls 
of some women—you had to dig rather deep before 
you got to it, but what a reward if you were lucky i 

He rather liked that idea, not knowing that some 
of it was by Swinburne out of Browning. And then 
there was that tiny light in her eyes, away inside, deep, 
like a hidden pool in a cave where a level ray of the 
sunset just manages to touch it once, for an instant. 
Then it is gone—^but you remember it for a long time. 
He believed he had seen the light like that in her eyes 
once; and he liked to pretend to himself that Teck 
had never seen it. Which probably, was true. 

They saw the car from a distance as he maneuvered 
it around the many curves before he could draw up 
near them. But he caught a glimpse of a neat, trim 
little figure, and one or two flying wisps of hair; it 
was all he needed to establish her identity. Funny, 
wasn’t it, that he should know that nobody but Jessica 
could wear a dress like that—that nobody but Jessica, 
could have it blown by the wind in just that manner. 
He wondered whether she could recognize him at that 
distance—at any distance, no matter how great; he 
would have been surprised indeed to know that she 
could. 

His car came to a grinding halt at the side of the 
house, where Jessica stood, waving her hand at him 
cordially. 

“You would think that one could have seclusion, 

buried deep in Virginia-” she began, giving him 

her hand. 

“Not so long as men aren’t like underground fishes, 



^‘TO-NIGHT AT THE OLD HOUSE!’’ 197 


blind,” he smiled. “You can hide your light deep in 
the woods if you like, Miss Pomeroy, but Pll make 
a beaten path to your door.” 

Val jumped out of the car and walked with her 
around to the front entrance of the house. 

“It’s just lunch time,” she announced. ^‘You’ll stay, 
of course.” 

Would he stay? He had to smile as he nodded to 
indicate his complaisance. 

Lunch was gay. With the advent of Val the girl 
was able to cast oflP the blue restraint that had been 
on her spirit for the last two days, like a filmy pall 
that hampered without binding. Teck’s influence on 
her, she noticed, was at its lowest ebb when this new, 
strangely interesting man was there. They talked of 
many things; of a Turner sunset in the museum, 
Gauguin, Arnold Daly in “Candida,” they discovered 
a mutual love for big league baseball and for a rat¬ 
tling good detective story, with many murders and the 
mystery kept up to the last page, automobiles, Chali¬ 
apin—and thus by devious and round-about stages 
they came down to themselves and their business here, 
and Teck. 

“Who told you I was down here?” she asked. 

*‘Why, nobody—I just guessed it. About the 
money, I suppose,” he ventured. She nodded a little, 
gravely. 

“I met Teck on the train, coming down,” he an¬ 
nounced casually, attempting a nonchalance about this 
man’s name and presence that he by no means felt. 

He could see the alarm flash into her eyes. In an 
instant her gay exterior was stripped from her like 
the mask it was; weighing heavily^n her, always, was 
the menace of Teck; she forgot it sometimes, for a 


198 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


brief moment, but it came back at a word, a glance, a 
thought, more somber and more sinister than before. 

^‘Then he’ll be here-” 

“Any minute, I suppose,” replied Val. “I say, let’s 
go for a walk—you could show me the grounds, you 
know. I’ll look them over and tell you where the 
money is,” he promised. 

“That’ll be good,” she said soberly, rising. 

She showed him the racetrack, the south end of, 
which was less than fifty yards from the house. They 
walked around it in silence for some time, admiring 
the dogwood with its splendor of foliage and fruit, 
seeing ever the far off hills in front of them, feeling the 
slight breeze on their faces, and knowing that they 
two were together and that it was the springtime of 
life though the year was at the fall. 

They said little for a long time, yet they felt 
close to each other, drawn by an indefinable yet irre¬ 
sistible bond, a community of interests and tastes, per¬ 
haps, that neither could put into words—unnecessary 
as words were. When they did talk it was of triviali¬ 
ties, of light, immaterial things, of the blue sea at Capri 
or a sunset across Coronado Bay, when you take the 
ferry from San Diego, of Madame Butterfly and of 
Elinor Glyn, of adolescence and of age, of the fact 
that the motion pictures, which could have been an 
art, had become nothing but an industry, a business for 
business men, of a prelude of Rachmaninoff’s—^not the 
prelude, but another which both were familiar with 
and which both decided was the better ... of sealing 
wax ... of cabbages ... of what young people talk 
when they foregather and their blood runs warm and 
strong. . . . 

The sun was going down rapidly when they suddenly^ 



<‘TO-NIGHT AT THE OLD HOUSE!” 199 


discovered that they had been walking for several 
hours; that day was almost over. At this time they 
were near the bare old Pomeroy house. 

“ThaUs the old house—^where nobody lives, isn’t it ?” 
asked Val. 

She nodded. “They say it’s haunted,” she said. 

“That’s fine,” he replied. Why not a haunted house, 
along with all the other paraphernalia of mystery—- 
the investiture of romance. “That’s bully,” he said 
again.. They regarded it closely from where they 
stood, and in the dying light they could very easily 
have brought themselves to the persuasion that beings 
not of this earth walked the place. Why not? 

It was gaunt and bare, with a lone stone chimney 
that stood up against the dying light like a great 
skinny finger; there was not a whole pane of glass in 
the windows—the storms had done their work well; 
all about it was an air of loneliness, of an aloofness, 
from the world, of a thing which was different, of 
something that was a connecting link between the past, 
and the present and yet not of either; there was about 
the house an aura of supernatural things, of knowl¬ 
edge of the shapes that go by night. It was just a 
tumble down old house that was dying from lack of 
attention and repair, yet it seemed more than that to 
the young couple as they stood there in the waning 
light and regarded it closely. 

“You couldn’t get a negro to go as close as this 
to the place for all the money in the world,” she said. 

“I guess many white men wouldn’t care to be hang¬ 
ing around it very much, either,” he added. “Espe¬ 
cially at night. I don’t know what it is, there’s some¬ 
thing about the old place ... I know it’s foolish, of 
course, but . . .” 


200 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


She nodded in understanding. ‘T know. That’s 
just the way I feel. Let’s go back—Elizabeth’ll think 
something’s happened to me.” They turned towards 
the little house. 

They were silent for a while after that, each busy 
with thoughts that found no outward expression. It 
was Val that broke the silence at last. 

“If I were old Peter Pomeroy,” he said slowly, “and 
1 had a lot of money to hide—^now, where would I put 
it.^” he asked himself, though he was speaking aloud. 

( She looked at him in comprehension. “Perhaps,” 
she said, “in the old house-” 

He assented. “That’s just it. It seems to me that 
I’d put it in a place where nobody was likely to go 
near it. That’s the old house, of course. No chance 
of anyone going near it there—to find the money by 
accident. Anybody who finds it there wiU have gone 
there purposely—and, of course, only you and Teck 
are supposed to know anything about it. I rather 
think we’d better explore the old place.” 

“To-morrow,” she replied. “I’ll be glad to have 
you come along with me-” 

“To-morrow Teck will be there,” he said, and she 
stared at him peculiarly. 

“Teck?” 

“Teck,” he repeated. He can reason these things 
out as easily as we can—and I don’t believe he’s going 
to waste any time. He’s got somebody with him—a 
member of his gang, I think—I noticed them together 
on the boat from Cape Charles; you can rest assured 
that he’ll be there to-morrow, unless he has better in¬ 
formation where the money is; and I don’t think he 
has, though he has the books.” this last was 




“TO-NIGHT AT THE OLD HOUSE!” 201 


an afterthought. Val was beginning to be sure that 
the secret of the hiding place lay in the books. 

“We’ll go with him, if he goes,” announced Jessica. 

“Maybe,” assented Val doubtfully. They walked in 
silence for a moment or two then, turning this phase 
of it over in their minds. If Teck was to be there 
to-morrow—and that seemed probable- 

“Why not go to-night?” asked Val suddenly, carry¬ 
ing out this reasoning. 

“To-night—to that house ?’^ she asked slowly. Then, 
“Why not? We can forestall him that way—-” 

“All right, it’s a go,” said Val. “I’m going back 
to the hotel to see my man—^I’U bring him back with 
me—I’ll get out about eight-thirty. Is that all right?” 

She nodded. “Yes, that’ll be fine.” 

They were almost at the house now. 

“Well, so long for now,” said Val, running for his 
car. He waved his hand at her. 

“So long,” she waved back at him. He started the 
car and was off. 

Before jerking out of sight around a curve he 
looked back once. At the front door stood Jessica, 
gazing after him—next to her stood the giant, non¬ 
chalant, careless figure of Ignace Teck. 



XXV 


THE WINGS OE THE NIGHT 

George Moore has said, somewhere, that the en¬ 
trance of a woman into a room is like a delicious 
change of light. And Moore, as everyone knows, is 
by way of being an expert about women; he is an ama¬ 
teur of women, an amorist. All this being so, his words 
ought to carry the weight of an authority with them. 
And in order to demonstrate the truth of his assertion, 
one has but to note the effect of Jessica Pomeroy 
upon Valentine Morley. 

The entrance of Jessica upon Val’s life had just the 
effect Moore has described; he had an inner change of 
light. His inner light, to that time, had been a little 
drab tinged with blue—a delicate blue, to be sure, 
but blue nevertheless; blue, conceded to be the color 
dedicated to dejection and moroseness, ennui and 
weariness. Somehow, just the sight of Jessica, the 
knowledge of being in the same world with her, had 
changed his coloring. His inner coloring, the subcon¬ 
scious coloring that Freud might have understood in 
him, had changed to a pinkish, old-rose tint. Suns 
were shining, birds were singing their fool heads off, 
the Giants and Yankees were winning, prohibition 
didn’t prohibit so terribly much—the golf course of 
Life was nothing but a long, wide, rolling, undulating, 
closely cropped fairway, with not a bunker or a ditch 
202 


THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 203 

or a sand trap, not a hint of hazard or rough. This 
was the effect of Jessica upon Val. 

These were the things of which Val thought as he 
jerked his way back to the hotel in his antiquated, 
horseless bus. A week ago life had been nothing but 
a dull round to him; getting up, getting through the 
day and evening in a half-hearted fashion, going to bed 
again, and repeat ad lib and ad infinitum. That was 
life. Now things were different. There was a zest to 
living, a purpose in Life—^he expressed it in capital 
letters. And all because a girl had hair that had a 
hint of color in its depths . . . and those eyes 1 • • . 
this was good for another fifteen minutes with Val, 
until he pulled up in front of the hotel. 

He found Eddie Hughes standing outside the hotel, 
talking animatedly to what was obviously a newly, 
found friend. Eddie spotted him as soon as his car 
drew up at the curb; asking his acquaintance to wait, 
he hastened to speak to Val. 

It appeared that the friend was not a new friend 
at all; it was a friend he had known in the army. 
There had been talk of going to the moving pictures in 
Hampton, the ‘‘supper show,” which finished about, 
nine or thereabouts. He would like to go, but only 
if there was no need of him this evening. 

This rather fitted in with VaPs ideas; although he 
had intended to take Eddie along, yet there seemed 
to be no real reason for doing so. There seemed no 
possible chance of danger; and if there was, Val rather 
had an idea he could handle the situation by himself. 
He told Eddie in a few words how to get out to the 
Pomeroy place, and what he intended to do to-night. 
Eddie was to follow him after the show, and wait for 
him at Jessica^s cottage. 


204 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘You’re really going out to that there haunted house 
to-night?” asked Eddie. 

“Yes ” said Val. “Why?” 

Eddie’s brow clouded. Perhaps he had been a little 
too swift with the moving picture stuff, anyway. 
Here was something that promised more fun than 
images on a canvas sheet, and he wasn’t going to be 
in it. It was exasperating. 

“I might try to get off from this pitcher stuff,” he 

suggested, “if you’ll just wait a minute-” 

“No, that’s all right, Eddie,” said his employer ben¬ 
evolently. “I want you to have a good time. Go right 
ahead and enjoy yourself.” 

“I know,” muttered Eddie, “but I think I might—” 
“No, give yourself no concern over that,” said his 
employer with magnanimity. “Take a little holiday 
for a couple of hours,” he suggested with a touch of 
unholy and malicious joy. He knew that the heart 
of Eddie was aching to come along to the haunted 
house—and now that he had decided on going without 
Eddie he intended to stick to it. 

“All right, sir,” replied Eddie, turning towards his 
friend with resignation in his eye. “But if you get 

killed I don’t want you to lay the blame on me-” 

“That’s all right,” said Val gravely. “If I get 
killed I’ll never say a word about the matter to you. 
Run along now, and enjoy yourself.” 

“It looks like rain,” Eddie predicted gloomily, ex¬ 
amining the sky judicially. “Perhaps-” 

“Oh, beat it!” snapped Val. “I’m going in to 
dinner.” 

There was no dressing for dinner, of course; primar¬ 
ily, because Val intended to hasten right back to 
Jessica’s place after dinner, and a dinner jacket was 





THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 


205 


not suitable wear for use among the spiders and dust 
of the old Pomeroy home; secondarily, because Val had 
no dinner jacket with him. 

Val regaled himself with a fine old southern dinner, 
running the gauntlet of waffles with real honey, fried 
chicken as only a Virginia chef can negotiate it, sweet 
potatoes, a salad for which the chef was famous, and 
coffee that was percolated on the table, in front of his 
eyes, until it was of just the desired amber shade. 
This he mixed with cream that had seen a cow recently. 
All in all, it was a meal to remember, not because of 
its complexity and its frills—^it had few of those, and 
it was as simple a meal as one could wish—^but because 
of the thorough wizardry of the cooking and the punc¬ 
tilious efficiency of the service. 

Val pondered a little on the presence of Teck with 
Jessica when he last saw her, but he dismissed the mat¬ 
ter as being, at the moment, inconsequential. There 
was a score to settle with Teck, and he intended to 
attend to the settling thereof himself, but there was 
nothing to worry about to-night. He was with Jessica, 
to be sure, but Val knew now that Jessica hated him 
and loathed him, whereas his own, VaFs, star was in 
the ascendant, as he jubilantly admitted to himself. 
Jessica was in no danger from the man to-night, Val 
decided. Surely she would not ask him to stay to 
dinner; he would leave early, and that evening the field 
would be open for Val and Jessica to pay that visit to 
the old Pomeroy house. 

He planned all this, laying it out to his satisfaction; 
he decided on what he would say to Jessica and what 
she would say to him; he plotted out the exact setting 
of the stage when he finally found the treasure; her 
words of gratitude, which he would wave aside lightly, 


206 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

as though it were a small thing he had done. It was 
pleasant to smoke one’s cigar like this and to think, 
these thoughts here, in the light, after a satisfying 
dinner. 

The sky was overcast and lowering when Val started 
out after dinner. The street lamps in Old Point Com¬ 
fort dispelled the gloom but faintly, and in a few min¬ 
utes he was out of their range altogether, swallowed 
up in the dark gloom of a chilly Virginia night. 

At Hampton he stopped, sought out a hardware 
store, and bought a small lantern. He figured he would 
need it at the old house. He had it filled carefully with 
oil, saw that the wick extended the proper distance, 
and was on his way in a very short time. 

Down the winding paths to the Pomeroy place he 
chugged. He saw the lights of the cottage long before 
he came close to it, and it came to him suddenly that 
perhaps Teck was still there. How could he tell 
whether Teck had already gone, or not? That being 
the case, it occurred to him that he had better come 
on the scene as quietly as possible. He did not want 
Teck to know that he was here to-night; if he intended 
to work without interruption, it would be better that 
Teck did not know. Certainly the handless one would 
take means to prevent his searching for the treasure. 
Teck would not give up so easily as that. 

A quarter of a mile from the cottage Val parked 
his car by the side of the road, well out of sight, and 
continued on foot. Silently he crept up to the cottage, 
merging with the shadows on the road, carrying his 
unlighted lantern in one hand. At the cottage Val 
crept up to one of the lighted living room windows and 
glanced in through the light curtains. 

He had done well in making his entrance upon the 


THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 


207 


scene a silent one, because three figures sat in the living 
room. In one corner sat Elizabeth, the old woman, 
dozing over a book. On a chair next to the table, 
where the lamp’s circle of light fell on him revealingly, 
sat Teck. The conversation, Val could see, was desul¬ 
tory. Jessica glanced once at her wrist watch, a little 
troubled, while Val looked, and he knew of what she, 
was thinking. Teck sat there, suave, smiling, and a 
little bland, carrying the bulk of the conversation. 
Outside crouched Val, a dark figure making one with 
the still darker background. 

Far off, at the other end of the track, Val could see 
a darker blotch against the sky, which he was pretty 
sure was the old Pomeroy house, the one he was to 
explore this night. The track showed, a little lighter^ 
in the gloom than the surrounding country. Around 
Val twittered the night life of the countryside, and 
somewhere in the rear of the house a mandolin rang 
into being, shattering the night softly with an old sea 
song, in the quavering voice of old Germinal, who had 
followed the sea in his youth. 

Oh, fare yo’ well, oh, fare yo’ well, us kin stay no mo’ wid yo’, 
ma love. 

So set down yo’ licker an’ dat gal fum off yo’ knee, 

Fo’ de wind, she come ter say, 

“Yo’ mus’ take me wile yo’ may. 

Does yo’ go ter Mothah Carey! 

(Walk her down ter Mothah Carey!)” 

Oh, we’s gwine ter Mothah Carey whah she feeds dem chicks at 
sea! 

Val smiled at the incongruity of the song, a song 
which should be roared by the combined chorus of 
the forecastle; Germinal squeaked and quavered, ac¬ 
companied by the clicking of his mandolin, in a great 
deal less than the proper volume and fullness of voices. 

Yet it combined with the darkness, and the yellow 


208 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


shaft of light which streamed from the window, to 
produce in Val a feeling that he was enveloped by this 
dark Virginia night; he shivered slightly in the some¬ 
what chilly wind; he watched for a moment or two 
longer, and slipped back into the shadows, one with 
the night. 

The question was one of expediency. What was to 
be done.f^ While one could not always be sure, because 
there was such a variable quality about Teck, yet it 
appeared to Val as though Teck were planted there 
for the whole evening—perhaps even the night. There 
was something so solid, so permanent, about the way 
he sat on that couch. Something so smug about the 
way he regarded Jessica when he caught her glancing 
at her wrist watch; probably he had made up his mind 
that if he himself was not going to hunt for old 
Pomeroy’s treasure that night, Jessica would not, 
either. As to Val, he probably had not given a thought 
to him to-night, not believing that Val would start an 
independent hunt of his own. 

So Val pondered, every once in a while glancing in 
at the window again to see whether or not Teck was 
planted as firmly as before. He was. Always. As 
he slipped back into the shadows, he thought he heard 
a movement behind him, slight as the soughing of the 
wind through the trees, yet distinguishable from the 
other surrounding night noises. 

He whirled instantly, but could make out nothing 
in the blackness that enveloped him. He shrugged his 
shoulders and called himself a fool for being as jumpy 
as a child during a ghost story. It had been just the 
movement of one of the bushes. He settled into the 
shadow of the lee of the bush and stayed there for a 
few moments. 


THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 


209 


Somehow, the feeling that he was not alone would 
not down. Of course it had bee'h the rubbing of the 
twigs in the wind, but Val felt that perhaps it had not 
been. Suppose it had only seemed like that. Sup¬ 
pose • . . 

He strained his eyes into the night on all sides of 
him. Softly, silent as a cat, he padded around two 
sides of the house. He could see nothing. To him 
on the wings of the night came the song of Germinal: 

Yo’ made me whut Ah is terday. 

Ah hopes your satisfied, 

Yer dragged muh down an’ down until 
Hia heart within muh dah-eye-d. . . . 

Val went back to his post at the window. There was 
no change in the position of the three within. Elizabeth 
was still dozing, Jessica was attempting to appear un¬ 
concerned at the passing of time, and Teck was a Gib¬ 
raltar of permanence. Val could hear nothing of what 
was being said, but he could see that the handless one 
was doing most of the talking. He was arguing in his 
quiet, emotionless fashion, his ugly scar standing out 
redly against the pasty skin of his face, and his slit 
shaped eyes gleaming at Jessica purposefully and— 
Val thought—evilly. 

Jessica was slightly paler than usual; he could see 
that Teck was trying to argue her into something, 
some course of action, perhaps; he could see, too, that 
Jessica was standing firm in her refusal, and would 
continue to stand firm. His impulse, of course, was 
to enter and put an end to the conversation. That, 
however, would scarcely be in accordance with the 
plans. He considered that it was just as well that 
Teck did not know he was there. It was a trump in 
the game—the value of surprise was in it. He de- 


210 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


cided to save it to the end—to play his trump only if 
necessary. At present, whatever Teck was saying, he 
seemed harmless enough, in spite of his great weight and 
strength. A man with no hands cannot do much upon 
the offence, quoth Val to himself. 

And yet, this man had an uncanny way of doing 
things that you might scarcely have thought possible. 
Val was practically certain that it was Teck himself 
who had struck him down in the vestibule of Jessica’s 
house; though he had no actual proof, he was equally 
certain that it was Teck who had done poor old Mat 
Masterson to death. It was the kind of job that he 
believed Teck himself would do. 

How were these things done? Val gave it up for 
the moment, yet he promised himself that these were 
things he would find out, riddles he would unravel be¬ 
fore he and this giant monstrosity were through with 
each other. This man was a power for evil in the life 
of Jessica; even if it had not been for the personal 
assaults committed on his person by Teck and his 
men, Val would have felt privileged to interfere. His 
love for Jessica gave him that right. He intended to 
settle with Teck for good—and he intended to do that 
in the immediate future. 

That was his reason for not handing over the man 
to the police. There were too many loose ends. There 
were things he had to discover; unexplained incidents 
that he wished to explain to his own satisfaction be¬ 
fore he took such a decisive action. He wished, for 
instance, to know why the books were so important. 
He wanted to find out their secret from Teck—the 
secret that made even murder seem justifiable to the 
handless one. What was it these books held? Was it 
the secret to the treasure? Perhaps—but Val had 


THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 


211 


looked through them carefully, and could find nothing. 

Was it possible that Teck was as much at sea con¬ 
cerning the whereabouts of the hidden money—if any, 
Val added—as he was? These were things for him to 
find out, Val decided. If Teck knew where the money 
was—if he had wrested the answer from the books^— 
was it not likely that he would have gone at once about 
the business of getting possession of it, instead of 
sitting here with Jessica, looking as though he intended 
to stay the entire evening? Val thought it quite likely 
that this was so; that Teck did not yet know much 
about the hiding place of the Pomeroy fortune. He 
admitted, however, that Teck might be in possession 
of a rather shrewd idea of its whereabouts. Other¬ 
wise, why should he have been in such a hurry to get 
down here? 

Val realized that he was dangerous to Teck—that 
is, that Teck must consider him dangerous. For Teck 
had not only to find the hidden wealth, he had to get 
away with it. And he would not be able to do that 
while Val was there, watching his every move. The 
money was not Teck’s, but once in his possession, away 
from the scene—^in another state—^perhaps in another 
country—it would be an almost impossible thing to 
get it away from him. 

With Val in this affair, however, Teck would not 
get away so easily, and he knew it. His problem was 
to eliminate Val, thought Val as he watched through 
the window; that is what he would do if he were Teck, 
and he gave the handless one credit for thinking in the 
same common sense way. With only Jessica to reckon 
with, Teck might readily make his getaway—perhaps 
even induce her to carry out her promise as to marry¬ 
ing him; with Val in the running he stood to lose both 


212 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


the money and the girl. For this affair was different 
from the usual buried treasure hunt, where the gold 
belongs to the first person who turns it up. It was 
wealth the ownership of which was established. De¬ 
cidedly, Teck would be at a disadvantage as long as 
Val was on the scene. 

These thoughts coursed through VaPs head swiftly 
as he stepped back from the window and merged again 
with the shadows alongside the road. He had run into 
a trap of TecPs in New York; then it was excusable, 
because he had no reason for thinking that Teck was 
laying plans to trip him up. But having had that 
valuable lesson, and knowing the cogent reasons Teck 
had for desiring his elimination, Val decided that it 
behooved him to watch his step and to take nothing 
for granted. 

He was watching Teck. How did he know that one 
of Teck’s creatures was not now watching him? He 
conceded that he did not know, but to satisfy himself 
he examined the ground round about him thoroughly 
again. He could find no sign of anybody watching 
him. 

Well, perhaps Teck really did not expect anything 
to happen to-night. A man can’t always be making 
plans for your murder, you know. 

The thing that concerned Val most at present was 
the appointment he had had with Jessica to go over 
the old Pomeroy house. It appeared to him that she 
would be unable to do anything about it to-night; Teck 
showed no intention of taking his departure. She 
vrould certainly say nothing to him about what she 
wanted to do; she could hardly ask him to take his 
departure, because that might make him suspicious 
that all was not well. 


THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT 


213 


All that being so, Val thought that perhaps he might 
run through the Pomeroy house himself. When could 
he find a better time? Teck was occupied. As long 
as he was with Jessica he could not be watching Val. 
And all Val wanted was time to go over the house 
swiftly—to determine, if he could, the possibility of 
treasure being hidden there. It would not take long. 

He took a last glance through the lighted window. 
Teck was planted as solidly as before. Jessica was 
silent, determined. Elizabeth was sound asleep, her 
book having slipped off her lap to the floor. 

“Well, here goes,” Val said to himself, picking up 
his lantern. 

In the shadow of the bushes, he made his way off into 
the direction of the gaunt old house. The plaintive 
voice of Germinal followed him down the road: 

Dis am de end ob er poifeck day. 

Near de end ob a joiney, too; 

But it leaves er thought which am big an’ strong, 

Wid er wish what am kin’ an’ true. . . . 

A catlike figure detached itself from the solid black 
of the roadside and stared after the departing Vai. 


XXVI 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

The black night oppressed Val as he hastened along 
the almost blotted-out road towards the old house. 
He traveled swiftly now, having been over the ground 
in the afternoon, but he could not throw off the feel¬ 
ing of espionage; the knowledge that he could not 
shake off this thing that was following him, whether 
human or something other than human. He laughed 
to himself, softly, in derision at this unaccustomed emo¬ 
tion of, say, something that was not quite fear, and 
yet approximated it in some way. 

If it were only something that one could grip with 
both hands, something of fighting flesh and blood, he 
would not have given it another thought; but it 
seemed to Val that it was more than that; as he looked 
around he could see nothing but the inky vegetation 
at the side of the road, above him was a dull, gray- 
black sky, with a faint phosphorescence in the east; 
and around him, all around him, hemming him in on all 
sides were unseen hands plucking at him to hold him 
^ back, almost-heard voices warning him to turn his face 
away from the old house, nebulous, smoke-like specters 
which he could not see, yet which he felt he could 
almost see. 

He laughed aloud once, just to hear his voice, and 
to throw off this feeling; hi* voice sounded strange 
and unaccustomed in the night air, as though it be- 
214 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 215 


longed to a different being; he could scarcely recognize 
it. And then, suddenly, the old house loomed up 
directly before him, black as anything this side of the 
pit could be, with deeper black where the windows 
should be. 

Even from where he stood he could see that the 
house was the veriest shell, standing erect simply be¬ 
cause nobody had thought to push it down. As he 
looked at the house, the first drop of rain fell. He 
moved towards the veranda, and in the shelter of the 
overhanging roof of the veranda he lighted his lamp 
quickly. Suddenly the rain came down in full force, 
without any more warning or preliminary; the water 
fell in solid sheets, beating upon the house like a 
waterfall on the eternal rocks. 

With his lantern dispelling feebly only a trifle of 
the surrounding darkness, Val pushed his way in 
through the door, which hung precariously on one 
hinge. There was a vicious stab of lightning, and a 
rumbling of thunder, first in the distance and grad¬ 
ually growing closer until it terminated in a tremen¬ 
dous clap that shook the house to the eaves. 

Val found himself in the entrance foyer, bare of 
furniture of any kind, with plaster hanging perilously 
from the walls and ceiling, his lantern making flickering 
shadows on the walls and in the comers. He felt some¬ 
thing brush his feet, and heard something padding 
away swiftly in the darkness. Rats! Well, he wasn’t 
afraid of rats—^not after the kind he had known in the 
trenches. 

He looked around the foyer swiftly. Outside the 
rain flooded the earth, a cloudburst of continuous pour¬ 
ing water that beat on the thin roof and walls of the 
house, making it reverberate like a drum. It splashed 


216 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


in through the entrance door and through the win¬ 
dows in great splashes, as though someone outside were 
pouring it in in buckets. Val shivered slightly, and 
made his way into the living room, which opened into 
the entrance hall. 

This was an immense room, and his little light could 
make but small headway against the encircling gloom 
that shrouded the walls and corners. He made out, 
in his first quick glance, that it seemed to be devoid of 
furniture, with the exception of a kitchen table and 
a pine chair that stood in the middle of the room. On 
the table was a tallow candle, half used. He moved 
forward to examine the table, for no other reason than 
because he was interested in these signs of recent hu¬ 
man habitation. 

The shadows danced strangely on the walls, and a 
spider shaded its way swiftly across the table, away 
from the candle, as his light fell upon it. Without 
warning, he heard something that momentarily turned 
the blood in his veins to ice. 

There was the tinkling of piano keys in the room, 
the sound of notes as though a light finger had run 
rapidly up the scale. A shiver ran through him, and 
he whirled quickly. He saw something he had over¬ 
looked; in one of the corners was a dilapidated old 
square piano, of the oldest possible vintage, and a 
tiny shadow leaping off the brown case showed him 
that a rat had run across the keyboard. 

He had to laugh at his attack of nerves; to think 
of Valentine Morley being afraid of an empty house 
at night, of his own shadow! Yet he realized, of 
course, that it was more than that; it was an atmos¬ 
phere of the dark and the supernatural in which he 
had enveloped himself. 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 217 

With an effort he threw off the feeling of oppression. 
A quick glance around the bare living room convinced 
him that, with the massive fireplace, the interior of the 
piano, the old fashioned mantel, and all the various 
other natural hiding places, it would take quite a while 
to go over this room as thoroughly as he should have 
liked. He resolved, then, to leave it for the last, in 
the meantime examining the rest of the house swiftly, 
and coming back to this room later. He had no great 
hope of discovering anything this night, yet he thought 
that, perhaps, he might have a stroke of luck; he might, 
in a flash, be drawn to investigate something that might 
otherwise take months of searching for. Anyway, he 
was spying out the lay of the land; he would come 
again, of course, and when he did he would have more 
than a vague notion of where to look. 

He wished now he had brought Eddie Hughes with 
him; it would have made him feel more comfortable. 
That was too late, however, so with a shrug of his 
shoulder that was meant to be philosophical and that 
turned out to be a cold shiver, he went out into the 
entrance hall again, where he had noted the stairs that 
led to the upper part of the deserted house. 

It was a rickety old winding staircase that led up¬ 
stairs, giving off the dust in clouds as Val’s feet fell 
on the steps; each stair creaked loudly, as though in 
protest at this unwarranted intrusion of an age-long 
privacy. Mice and rats scurried away at his ap¬ 
proach, and the spiders in the comers of the stairs 
moved waraingly as his shadow fell upon them. 

He found nothing of any assistance to him in the 
upper part of the house, though he went over the 
empty rooms carefully. Great cracks were opened 
in the ceiling over his head, and in the floors under 


218 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


his feet. What paper there was on the walls hung 
down to the floor in long panels, and in many places 
the plaster had come oflT, exposing the laths and logs 
beneath. 

Outside the rain beat down heavily, soggily, having 
settled into a steady, monotonous downpour. The 
empty chambers and halls echoed and re-echoed to the 
dull beat of the storm, and the sense of oppression 
that Val had been experiencing all evening was height¬ 
ened by the gloomy rooms and leaping shadows caused 
by his lantern. In the corners his light reached not 
at all, unless he stepped right up to them. 

Once or twice he thought he heard a step down¬ 
stairs, but he put it down to his imagination and to 
his overwrought nerves. 

“Steady, Val!’’ he spoke aloud to himself, to calm 
his nerves. Don’t be a baby, you big mutt. His voice 
rumbled peculiarly in the empty rooms, where a voice 
had not been raised for perhaps a generation.^ 

He examined each room carefully, and decided there 
was little hope of finding anything upstairs. The walls 
were almost bare; there were no panels, the floors and 
ceiling were thin, so that nothing could be hidden in 
them; so thin was the floor that if it had been light, in 
one of the rooms he examined that he thought must 
have been over the living room, he would have been able 
to see into the room below. 

In the attic he found nothing of any value what¬ 
ever, though he examined it carefully and meticulously. 

“Well, Peter Pomeroy, old chap, if you’ve hiddeij 
anything in this house, which I doubt, I think it must 
be downstairs—in the living room, maybe, or the 
kitchen.” He remembered that he had yet to examine 
the dining room, kitchen, butler’s pantry, and any 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 219 


other rooms that were downstairs in addition to the 
living room. There must also be a cellarj he decided; 
would not a man bent on hiding treasure think natur¬ 
ally of the cellar? Val thought that it was possible. 

Turning towards the stairs, he creakily made his 
way down to the foyer. What was that? He heard 
a sibilant hissing, a whisper on the stairs he had just 
descended. 

He whirled swiftly, thinking he heard a noise of 
some kind above the beating of the storm. He strained 
his eyes into the darkness and could see nothing. 

With a muttered imprecation at the jumpy state of 
his nerves, he groped his way through the dark hall in 
what he supposed was the general direction of the 
kitchen and dining room. He stopped suddenly again, 
thinking he heard a slight movement. 

Holding the lantern high over his head, he exam¬ 
ined as much of the place as he could, the moldy plaster 
around him, the dilapidated ceiling and the half falling 
stairs. Nothing. He went on. 

Around the bend he went, into the darkest place he 
had seen yet, sheltered from all possible light by the 
overhanging stairs. A dark, swift figure moved, and 
then another. 

His quick eye caught it. He put down the lantern 
and reached for his automatic, but he was not quick 
enough. Two figures hurled themselves on him. His 
right arm shot out in a short jolt, and caught the first 
assailant under the ear, flinging him down hard on 
the creaking floor half a dozen feet away. 

A great figure loomed in front of him now. Even 
in the darkness he could see who it was. There was 
no mistaking that menacing bulk. 

“Oh, so it’s you, Iggy!” he shot out. 


^20 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


^‘Yes, it’s me, you-!” cursed the handless 

one, grating and sinister. 

With a shock that shook the narrow hall the two 
big men thudded together, and Val remembered a dis¬ 
tinct surprise at the great strength of the man with 
no hands. He felt no alarm, however, because how 
could Teck have a weapon? He had no hands in which 
to hold it. 

That being the case, he disregarded the flailing arms 
of the big fellow and reached for his throat. He saw 
the other’s right arm come up suddenly, flicking up like 
the head of a rattlesnake, and he had no time to duck, 
even if he had wanted to. 

It was a glancing blow on the head. That was all 
he knew. In front of him everything went black and 
silent, and he slumped down into a muscleless heap at 
fTeck’s feeE 



Val came out of it slowly. He saw a gleaming light, 
getting farther away, and now drawing closer. His 
head ached badly, and now the light began to come 
closer to him, and still closer, until finally it rested 
next to him, and he discovered it was the candle, lighted 
now, on the plain kitchen table in the living room, next 
to which he sat in the pine chair. 

He tried to arise, and found that he could not. He 
was bound to the chair. For some moments he sat 
perfectly still, trying to piece together the happenings 
of the last few minutes. He found it difficult. 

He remembered, of course, having put out his first 
assailant. He remembered recognizing Teck, and clos¬ 
ing with him. He remembered the flick of the scoun- 




THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 221 


drePs wrist towards him, and then he remembered no 
more. It was plain, therefore, that Teck’s arm had 
found his mark. 

Yet how could a man without hands knock him out? 
He puzzled about this for a little while, and then, his 
head aching, he had to give it up. For the matter 
of that, how could a man without hands beat out the 
brains of poor old Mat Masterson? He couldn’t. 

That was where Val ended in his thought about Teck. 
The man couldn’t do it, of course. But he had done 
it. 

Next to him the candle burned fitfully, almost going 
out, often, at the sudden draughts from the windows, 
lighting up the ceiling in quick light and extinguish¬ 
ing it in swift darkness as it leaped and fell. Thq 
rain increased in intensity, and there was the rolling 
and reverberating of distant thunder. Val glanced 
toward the door and saw that it was closed—^locked 
probably. Though that was unnecessary, as the open 
window was before him, with neither pane nor sash. 

The rain swirled into the room through the window 
viciously. Val could actually hear the intense silence 
that had settled down upon the house over the noise 
of the storm. The noise was external; inside it was 
still as the grave. He shuddered. He did not like 
to think about graves at this time and in this place. 
He cursed his stupidity again in not having had sense 
enough to bring Eddie Hughes along on this trip. 

Perhaps Eddie, being alarmed at his absence, would 
follow along. That led to another train of thought. 
Eddie, too, might fall into the hands of the enemy, 
unawares. Given a moment to draw his gun, or room 
for a left hook, and Eddie would be able to take care 


222 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

of himself—but would he be given that moment? Val 
doubted it, and he gave himself over to the task of 
attempting to loosen his bonds. 

He was satisfied now that he had indeed been 
watched as he peered into Jessica’s little house from 
the road. Of course he would have been watched. It 
was foolish to think that Teck would not have thought 
of that. A twinge went through his head, and he 
cursed Teck again, and promised himself an ample 
vengeance. 

He could make no headway with the bonds. It was a 
clean, workmanbke job, and there was little chance 
of his being able to release himself. He would need 
some assistance. At his side the candle guttered and 
sputtered in its grease, and Val had that uneasy sense 
of another presence in the house with him. He could 
hardly define the feeling, but he felt certain there was 
someone there; he did now know how he knew, but 
he did not doubt the fact. 

Was Teck, or his assistant, still in the house? That 
might be, though Val had not heard them. If not 
they, who could it be? Not Jessica, certainly. In this 
rain, and alone at tliis hour. Not, not Jessica. 

Was it something human, then? After all, nobody 
had ever been able to prove that all supernatural visi¬ 
tations were false—actually did not exist. And this 
old house—there was something about it that savored 
of the other world, of the world beyond the grave. Its 
gaunt rooms and its isolated position, its resounding 
walls and floors, and its yawning, empty windows. 

He could scarcely throw the feeling ofip, though he 
detested himself for it. Lower and lower the candle 
sputtered next to him. Higher and higher came the 
rumble of the storm. On the pine table, next to his 


THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 223 

elbow, something splashed, softly, yet he heard it. He 
turned quickly and his breath went short. 

It was a crimson spot of warm human blood. 

As he looked, another drop fell next to it. He 
looked up, in a sudden panic, and saw that it was 
coming from the ceiling—a thin, dark trickle that 
turned red when it came into the compass of the candle 
light. 

What was it up there; bleeding, dying, dripping 
through this old ceiling in the black night ? There was 
another splash of a drop of blood and another. 

Suddenly, with a wet sobbing splash, one of the 
drops struck the candle wick full, extinguishing it in¬ 
stantly, leaving the room and Val in a black, velvet 
darkness. For an instant or two,—or was it an eter¬ 
nity or two?—he sat there, immovable, his face pale. 

There was a sudden, leaping flash of sheet light- 
ning, illuminating the room to the last, farthest corner 
for a brief instant. At the window toward which Val 
was looking, he saw something that made his blood 
run cold. 

Framed in the window, a flgure from the old world, 
was the upper part of a man. Although the time of 
seeing the apparition was only an instant, Val could 
remember every detail, so plainly did he see it. The 
figure was dressed in the frock coat affected by the old 
Virginia planters and gentlemen, and his face was 
shaded by a large soft hat. His face was pasty, old, 
with a white goatee and mustache, and the eyes were 
unutterably mournful and aged, dark windows that 
looked upon the world in sorrowful aloofness. Every 
line on the figure’s face was plain to Val in the fraction 
of a second in which he glimpsed it, standing there at 
the window. 


224f THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

In a part of a second he was in black night again, 
enveloped in it as though he were in bed with his head 
under the stifling covers. He could not put his hands 
up to feel of it, but he would not have been surprised to 
know that his hair was standing on end. He could 
feel his skin, all prickly, as though a cold blast had 
struck him. 

Then there was a peal of thunder that shook the old 
house to its very foundations, and as silence succeeded 
that overwhelming noise, the scream of a woman, wild 
and shrill, cut through the night like a rapier blade, 
from somewhere inside the house. 

It was a distorted cry drawn from the soul, the cry 
of a being in terror, in deadly fear. 


xxvn 


THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 

The first emotion that swept over Val was one of 
unreasonable, incontrollable fear. It was the fear of 
the unknown, an emotion that overwhelms the senses 
not under the direction of the brain. Why the vision 
of the mysterious man at the window should so have 
affected him Val could scarcely have told; instinctively, 
however, Val had felt that this was not a being of any 
word he knew—rather was it something that returned 
to walk the earth at night when storms raged and the 
elements lashed the earth in fury. 

Yet the figure, even in that brief glance, had seemed 
flesh and blood enough. There was something in that 
face that reminded Val of something—of something 
he had known, or had seen. He could not place the 
memory anywhere, at present, but even in the wave of 
fear that covered him momentarily he thought of it, 
and now that the apparition was gone it occurred to 
his mind insistently. Who was this old man, and what 
did he want here? 

The storm shattered its waves resonantly, thunder¬ 
ously, upon the empty shell that resembled a house. 
The room was now as black as something the other 
side of the eternal pit; strain his eyes as he would 
Val could make out nothing except the dim rectangle 
that he knew was the window. What was the meaning 
225 


226 THE WHISPER ON 'T’HE STAIR 

of the blood that dripped down upon him, through the 
ceiling? A slight shudder passed through him, and he 
told himself that he was chilly; but it was hardly the 
night air that caused that shudder. 

Was a man dying over his head? Was he already 
dead? A human being was up there, his life fluid 
ebbing away, and Val could do nothing to help. He 
struggled blindly, furiously, with his bonds, and though 
he gained no material advantage, yet he profited by it, 
when once he had stopped his struggles, panting. It 
had steadied his mind and driven away this mysterious 
fear that had possessed his soul, that had entered into 
him regardless of the dictates of his reason. He felt 
more himself. 

And that shriek? Who was that? Could it have 
been Jessica? He did not know—a feminine shriek, 
especially one such as he had heard, such as had con¬ 
gealed his blood momentarily, is sometimes a quite in¬ 
distinguishable thing; it is a disembodied thing, know¬ 
ing neither age nor color; it is simply the incarnation 
of terror, verbal and articulate. 

There was still Teck to reckon with, Val thought. 
Teck and his man surely would be here soon; they had 
bound him, and for one purpose or another they were 
certain to return. He wondered, almost impersonally, 
whether Teck would put him out of the way per¬ 
manently this time. He rather inclined to the idea, 
that Teck would not; but then, it was not a thing any¬ 
one could be sure about. Not that Teck would hesi¬ 
tate at murder! Especially here, where he could do 
almost anything he cared to do, with no one any the 
wiser. But he had the feeling that the handless one 
was not yet ready to put an end to his existence 
summarily. 


THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 


227 


There was always Jessica for Val to think about, in 
these moments. He wondered where she was, and 
whether she was in the power of Teck. He gave him¬ 
self little concern about that—as to whether she was 
in his power—^because he did not believe for an instant 
that Teck would willingly cause any harm to come to 
her. But he was aware, by now, that this sinister 
fellow had an uncanny influence over the girl; that he 
could cause her to do things against all her nature and 
judgment; he was afraid that, sometime, Teck would 
actually induce her to marry him. That, he felt cer¬ 
tain, was what the argument had been about this night, 
when they had so stubbornly faced each other in the 
cottage. 

He paused for a moment in his meditations and 
glanced around hastily. The room was as black as 
ever, and he could make out nothing, but it seemed 
to him, for an instant, that he had heard a movement 
in the room; not a solid, concrete movement, something 
of the flesh, of humankind—this was a different kind 
of movement, like the sobbing of the wind through a 
midnight forest, or the intangible, nebulous movement 
light as the moonlight; of a graveyard Thing cross¬ 
ing a tombstone. 

He could see nothing, but he could feel a Presence 
in the room; behind him, on the sides, shrinking in the 
lee of the lowering walls, moving, peering at him from 
all sides. He gave an involuntary shudder, and tried 
to laugh it off, but it would not down. Something was 
in the room with him. Outside the rain fell suddenly, 
in solid sheets, beating on the dull earth regularly, 
dripping off the eaves, pounding on the reverberant 
roof. Val shifted uneasily in his seat, and tried to 
pierce the darkness. 


228 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“Who is there?’^ he asked suddenly, loudly; over the 
beat of the elements. 

There was no answer, but the next instant his every 
sense was on the alert, the gooseflesh prickling on his 
skin. As he turned back to the front of the room, he 
could have sworn that a shadow had slipped from one 
side of the room to the other—across the lightened 
gloom of the window. It was no more than a shadow, 
and made no more noise than one in its passage—but 
it was something that he had seen, he was sure of that. 
There was something in the room with him. 

“Who’s that?” he asked again, staccato. 

As before, the beat of the rain was his only answer. 

Suddenly, he felt that this Presence was standing 
behind his chair; he twisted in his seat to try to make 
it out. There was a twicking at his bonds, light as 
the sunlight on the tops of trees, and he felt the cords 
loosen. There was another lithe motion, and he felt a 
sharp bladed knife glide through the cords that held 
his hands fast. 

Stiff, he tried to rise, and found that he could. The 
cords fell off him, and he was a free man. He whirled 
from one side of the room to the other in the endeavor 
to make out who or what it was that had freed him, 
but could see nothing. A cold gust of wind, coming 
from an unexpected angle, blew on him, and he saw, 
dimly, that the door was open. It had been closed 
before. 

“That’s how he—or It—got out,” he told himself, 
grimly. “Well, whoever you are, thanks awfully.” 

His first act was to feel in his pocket for his tiny, 
powerful electric flashlight. He sighed with relief when 
he found it, because one needed light here rather badly 
at times. He must get out of this room, he decided. 


THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 


229 


Teck and his confederate knew he was in this room— 
having placed him there—therefore he must be gone 
when they returned. 

He felt his way to the door and out into the little 
entrance room, which he ascertained was also empty. 
It seemed plain to him that Teck and his man had left 
the place—temporarily, at any rate. But there was 
something upstairs that must be looked at; something 
lying on the floor, bleeding, perhaps dead—almost cer¬ 
tainly dead. Val could not go away and leave that 
lying there; a fellow human, perhaps needing assist¬ 
ance. He believed he knew how to find his way to the 
room—he had noted the room when he had been up 
there, directly above the living room, where he had been 
bound. 

A room with thin floors, with great cracks between 
the boards, so that in the day time one could probably 
look down into the living room. Val could imagine a 
burning, intense eye staring eternally through the crack 
into the room below. 

He made his way silently upstairs, not making us^ 
of his flash for fear of divulging his whereabouts. 
Quietly he moved, and so carefully, feeling each step 
before he put his weight down upon it, that it took him 
quite five minutes before he reached the top of the stair¬ 
way. He paused at the door of the room above the 
living room—paused, and touched his hand lightly to 
the automatic in his pocket—which they had neglected, 
strangely, to take away from him. For bandits, it oc¬ 
curred to Val, Teck and his playmates were as careless 
as they could well be. Now, if he were banditting. . . . 

He touched the knob of the half falling door, and 
entered the dark room. At first he could see nothing. 
Cautiously, he allowed the beam from his flashlight to 


230 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


play on the floor, around the walls; he discovered 
nothing. He turned it on the center of the floor— 
where he had been almost afraid to train it. 

“WhoVeil’s there!” grated an exasperated voice at 
him, and a warm glow of thanksgiving came over Val. 
He was no more alone—and the man who was dripping 
blood was evidently alive. 

“Hello, Eddie,” he chirped. “I’m not keeping you 
up, I hope.” 

He trained the flashlight on the floor, where the 
figure of Eddie Hughes was staggering, a bit unstead¬ 
ily, to its feet. With a quick movement he was at 
Eddie’s side, assisting him. 

“No—I’ve had my beauty sleep, sir,” replied Eddie. 

Val turned the light on his face. He was a ghastly 
figure, with his face streaked with blood from a deep, 
ugly gash over his right eye. Evidently he had fallen 
immediately over a large crack in the floor, and it was 
this freely flowing blood that had put out Val’s flicker¬ 
ing candle. The blood was clotted now, though he 
must have lost rather more of it than a man can con¬ 
veniently spare. 

“Hurt much, Eddie inquired his employer. 

“No, I’m all right now,” said Eddie. “Knocked me 
for a gool, for awhile, though. Dunno how long I’ve 
been lyin’ there, dead to the world. Never had a chance 
to take a wallop at ’im-” 

“At whom?” inquired Val. 

“That guy without no hands. I- 

“How do you get into this, anyway?” asked Val, 
“I thought you were at the pictures-” 

^‘Oh, them pitchers! I sorta changed my mind. I 
came along to the little house an’ I seen how things 
was, so I guessed you had gone down here—so nat- 





THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 


231 


urally I strung along. I sneaked into the house, quiet 
like, an’ tried to get into the room downstairs. It was 
locked, so, after I give the once over to the other rooms 
downstairs, I came up here, where they jumped me. I 
got a flash of old boy Teck swinging for me, but I 
didn’t worry none about it, because that bird’s got no 
hands, so how could he hurt me.? That’s all I know, 
sir,” he finished simply. 

‘‘Look’s like a glancing gash you got,” remarked 
Val. “Guess it’s lucky it didn’t catch you full; I sup¬ 
pose he thinks you’re dead.” 

“Well, I don’t feel so darn strong, sir,” came back 
Eddie. “I suppose I musta lost a quart of claret. I 
think a drink’ll fix me up all right, though. What’s the 
next move ?” 

Val considered a moment. “I don’t know,” he con¬ 
fessed. “What do you think?” 

“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” replied Eddie. 
“It seems to me we ought to beat it back to Miss Pome¬ 
roy’s house—I have a hunch that big yegg’s there; 
we’ll corner him there an’ give him what for.” This 
sounded reasonable. 

“He has been running around loose rather too long, 
hasn’t he?” said Val. “I think you’re right.” 

“Let’s go, then. But lissen, boss—^he belongs to 
me,” insisted Eddie. 

“Nonsense,” said Val. “He belongs to the Law— 
and that’s where he’s going. He’s interfered with 
us just once too often. I didn’t want to do that, 
but- 

“But you don’t have to do it, Mr. Morley,” pro¬ 
tested his man. “Just hand the big bum over to me 
—an’ the law’ll never see him.” 

“Your ethics are all wrong, Eddie,” Val put in. 



232 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


“What do you want to do—slug him? You can’t slug 
a man with no hands—a defenseless human-” 

“Defenseless me eye!” burst in Eddie. “How do you 
get that way? Beggin’ your pardon, sir. But if he’s 
defenseless, I’m in me cradle listenin’ to me mother 
jazzin’ about the treetops an’ the cradle rocking, an’ 
all. Defenseless—say, I guess you wouldn’t think so 

if he’d cracked you one on the bean like he did me-” 

Eddie’s language, careful in his calmer moments, was 
decidedly slipshod and slangy when he was moved. 

“He did, Eddie,” broke in Val, soberly. “I wonder 
what he carries there- 

“Whatever it is, it’s a world beater—that’s all I 
got to say,” said Eddie. “Gee! That crack he give 
me was enough to make my whole family sick.” 

Silently they made their way out of the house, seeing 
and hearing no one; evidently the place was deserted 
once more, left to its long sleep as before, “one with 
the darkness and the powers thereof,” as Val repeated 
to himself, half audibly. 

A few handfuls of rainwater sufficed to wash the 
blood off Eddie’s face, and, bound up with his em¬ 
ployer’s handkerchief over his right eye, he was once 
more ready for whatever the night should bring forth. 
By the time they reached Jessica’s little cottage the 
rain had got in its work well, and they were soaked, 
with their clothes clinging to their limbs affectionately 
and moisture dripping from every seam. 

A broad beam of light emanated from the living room 
window, cutting a few feet into the night with its 
golden glow and leaving the rest of outdoors blacker by 
contrast. Val knocked on the door. Aftel* a moment* 
it was opened by Jessica herself. 

In silence she preceded them into the living room. 





THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 


233 


where Val and Eddie stood, two dripping figures, 
curiously out of place in the secure comfort of the 
small room. 

‘Ts Teck here?” asked Val. He looked at her for a 
reply, but she stood singularly silent, a new, a different 
Jessica Pomeroy than he had known. 

There was a subtle change in her, and as he looked 
again he saw that the change was not too subtle; he 
could sense it easily. The atmosphere was different, 
somehow; her attitude toward him was different. He 
could see a peculiar tenseness about her demeanor, 
about the corners of her eyes, for instance, out of which 
she regarded him quietly. 

“Why do you ask?” she inquired calmly. 

It was now his turn to stare at her, in inquiry. 
“Why do I ask?” he echoed. 

“Yes—what is Mr. Teck to you?” she asked again, 
intoning monotonously, as though repeating a lesson 
that had been drilled into her by constant iteration. 

Val looked at her unbelievingly; was this the Jessica 
Pomeroy he knew? The Jessica Pomeroy who had made 
an appointment to explore the old house with him this 
night? She was different, and he could scarcely say 
how, though her attitude was plain enough now—it 
was no longer friendly; it was almost openly hostile. 
But it was not that he was thinking of—external dif¬ 
ferences were easy to detect; but something inside of 
her had gone wrong, he could see that; some fuse burned 
out; some fine wire of determination severed. 

“What’s wrong, Jessica?” he asked, stepping up a 
bit closer to her impulsively. “You’re so changed 
from-” 

She stepped away from him, two spots of color flar¬ 
ing in her pale cheeks. 



234 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


^‘I never gave you permission to call me Jessica, 
Mr. Morley,” she said. “And as for anything being 
wrong-” 

“Why, this Teck-he began. 

“I am engaged to marry Mr. Teck,’^ she flashed back 
at him. “Really, I hardly see why you take it upon 
yourself to thrust your personal interference upon us 
in this matter. I told you at our first conversation 
that I was engaged to marry him-’’ 

“Why, Jessica!’^ burst out Val, puzzled, and a little 
angry. “You said- 

“Never mind what I said, Mr. Morley,” she cut in 
calmly, monotonously. “You will confer a great favor 
upon me if you will go back to New York, and forget 
all that has gone before.” 

“But surely, Jessica,” he protested, “you cannot 
marry this murderer! Why, he has twice tried to kill 
me, and-” 

“Your opinions in the matter will hardly convince 
me, Mr. Morley, that there is any truth in what you 
say. Will you be good enough to do as I ask you—go 
away, and not come back?” she asked it appealingly, a 
tremor in her otherwise emotionless voice. 

He examined her silently for a moment or two before 
speaking, his brain pounding with the unexpected de¬ 
velopment in the affair. He did not for a moment be¬ 
lieve in what she was saying—that she was acting a 
part he was well aware. How could the woman he 
loved be so cold and indifferent to him! Why, she 
simply couldn’t—she was . . . 

“Surely you’re joking, Jessica,” he exclaimed. 
“Why, you know, for a minute I thought you meant 
it—” 

“I’m not joking, Mr. Morley. I mean every word I 








THE UNKNOWN PRESENCE 


235 


say. If you^re a gentleman, you’ll do as I ask.” She 
moved toward the door, an unmistakable sign that the 
interview was at an end. There was nothing for Val to 
do but bow and take his leave in silence, which he did, 
his head whirling dizzily from the suddenness of the 
let-down. 

Without a word Val and Eddie walked around the 
house to the road "where their car was cached. The 
rain had eased up a little now, and it was warmer, 
though Val did not notice these elemental changes in 
the least degree. It was a shock to the tense nerves 
of both of them when a small feminine figure suddenly 
stepped out in front of them from the shadows that 
lined the bushes at the side of the road. 

“Mr. Morley!” she said in a whisper. 

“Hello! What’s all this ?” muttered Val to himself. 
He and Eddie stopped dead in their tracks. 

“It’s me—Elizabeth—Miss Pomeroy’s servant,” said 
the voice. 

“Oh, yes. What is it, Elizabeth.?” Val asked kindly. 

“Why, it’s about Miss Jessica,” said the old woman. 
“I—I heard what she was saying to you. You mustn’t 
mind what she says, Mr. Morley. I—^know her true 
feelings in the matter—anything she said to you to¬ 
night is not herself speaking. It’s that devil Teck—^he 
can make her say and do things she would never think 
of doing. He’s a kind of hypnotist—can make her say 
anything he likes by just looking deep in her eyes; 
that’s how she happened to come down here, you know,” 
the old woman hurried on in her recital. 

“Down here.?” queried Val, 

“Yes. She wasn’t going to come—^but he looked into 
her eyes and said she’d have to come—and here she is— 
that handless hypocrite! He told her what to say to 


236 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

you to-night—^he’s still there, him and his friend 
theyVe in the kitchen, waiting for you to go. I just 
thought I’d tell you, because- 

“Thanks very much, Elizabeth,’^ said Val kindly, 
a warm glow fanning itself to a flame in his heart 
again. “I won’t forget. Now run along back to the 
house before they miss you.” She made a little curtsey 
and merged again with the darkness. 

So his suspicions had been true. It was not Jessica 
who had spoken to him this evening—it had been Teck 
himself; Teck, speaking with the lips of Jessica Pome¬ 
roy. He would marry her, would he I Val grated this 
to himself, adding a few words that can scarcely be 
used in this highly moral story. He would marry the 
electric chair! Or better still, he, Val, would choke 
him with his bare hands. That would be satisfactory. 
He enlarged upon this idea by the time they reached 
the automobile; this was to be the real thing in chok- 
ings—none of your amateur affairs about it—satisfac¬ 
tion guaranteed, and all that sort of thing. Ah, it 
would feel good to get his fingers into the throat of the 
black-hearted scoundrel . . . et cetera . . . and so 
forth . . . ad lib . . . 

It was a silent ride back to the hotel, with Eddie 
occupied wholly in making the rickety flivver keep to 
the road, and Val veiled in his thoughts. As for going 
home, as Jessica had suggested, he had not the slightest 
intention of doing any such foolish thing. 



XXVIII 


A JOB OF BURGBAEY 

At the hotel Val and Eddie called on the resident 
doctor and had Eddie’s wound washed out and band¬ 
aged up properly. It was a nasty cut which had 
cleaned itself out thoroughly by the simple expedient 
of bleeding freely, and was no longer dangerous, though 
the doctor said that he thought it might leave a slight 
scar. Eddie said that he felt as good as new, and 
none the worse for his experience, though he looked 
rather desperate with his immense cross-shaped plaster 
covering his right eye and a large part of his forehead. 

Once in their rooms, the men sat down to discuss the 
situation and to think out some solution, if possible. 

Val lighted his pipe, sat down in a large easy chair, 
and gave himself up to reflection for a few minutes. 
Eddie sat in silence, too, smoking a vile smelling ciga¬ 
rette of pure Virginia tobacco. 

‘‘Well, what do you say, Eddie?” asked Val at 
length. 

Eddie was still silent. It was almost as if he had 
not heard. He leaned comfortably back in his chair, 
and smoked luxuriously, relaxing every limb. 

“Come, snap out of it, Eddie. This-” 

“This here, now, Ignatz Teck-” began Eddie 

calmly. 

“Ignace, Eddie,” corrected Val. “Be precise.” 

“Well, Ignace, then, though I don’t see as it’s any 
237 




238 THE WHISPEK ON THE STAIR 


different. This here Teck bird must be removed, 
mustn’t he?” 

‘‘Look’s like it, Eddie. I had thought of handing, 
him over to the police, but there are reasons why it 
might be inadvisable. In the first place, I don’t want 
to drag Miss Pomeroy into it—and though she is abso¬ 
lutely innocent, of course, yet that won’t prevent the 
papers smearing her name all over the story. In the 
second place, I am not certain that the police would 
be able to get anything on him. The only thing that, 
might connect him with the murder of old Mat Master- 
son is-” 

“The books,” supplemented Eddie. 

“Exactly. And what’s to prevent him from getting 
rid of them at the first alarm-” 

“Let’s help him get rid of them,” decided Eddie. 

Val looked his inquiry. “You mean-” 

“Sure thing. He must have them with him—seeing 
that they probably contain the dope about where this 
here money’s stuck away; why—I bet they’re in his 
room right now.” 

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” assented Val, nodding his, 
head. “But I don’t think he’s been able to locate the 
money himself, yet—in fact, I’m sure he hasn’t. The 
thing to do is to beat him to it.” Eddie nodded, 

“Have you any idea at all-” 

“Not the slightest, Eddie. Suppose you were an old 
man, and you put some instructions in a book about 
where to find your fortune—what would you do?” 

Eddie was quiet for a space. “I guess I’d mark the 
place, some way,” he said at length, “so’s I wouldn’t 
forget.” 

Both lapsed into a brief silence again, and it was 
Val who broke it this time. “By Christmas, Eddie, ^ 






A JOB OF BURGLARY 


239 


think you’ve hit it! Ah, the perspicacity of the work¬ 
ing classes! You think-” 

‘‘Well, I think a ten thousand dollar bill is a pretty 
decent sort of marker, boss,” said Eddie, evenly. “If I 

was doing the marking, I think-” 

“Elementary, Watson, elementary!” quoted Val, now 
thoroughly alive to the idea. “I remember exactly 
where that bill was—^it was in the Bible, page two hun¬ 
dred. Deuteronomy. Maybe there’s a passage that re¬ 
fers to it in this Bible—I know the exact chapter, 
because I read over a little of it at the time. Let’s 
have it, Eddie.” 

Eddie handed hiin the copy of the Bible that lay on 
the little table beside the bed—“The Property of the 
Gideons”—there are hundreds of thousands of them 
scattered over this land, in almost every hotel room 
in the country, a familiar, black-backed Bible with the 
red-edged pages. Val read the section carefully, but 
could find nothing that looked like a clew to what he 
wanted. He read it over carefully again, and then 
shook his head as he put it down. 

“Nix,” he said. “Nothing doing.” 

“I didn’t think you’d find anything there,” said 
Eddie. “You’d have to look at the Bible he used. 
Might be-” 

“Probably you’re right, Eddie, if there’s anything 
in this theory. A Bible’s a pretty big book, and a 
man might make annotations in it that could easily be 
overlooked unless you knew just where to hunt for 

them. Then the only thing to do is to-” 

“To lift the books out of Teck’s room—— 
“Again!” laughed Val. “Say, we could take a mov¬ 
ing picture of those books, they’ve been doing so much 
traveling. But I think you have the right angle, Eddie, 







240 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


at that. The best time to get those books would be 
right- 

“Right now,” put in Eddie. “I don^t think his nibs 
is back yet—that old girl said they were still in the 
house there. I don’t think he’ll be in any great hurry 
to leave, until he has to. It don’t seem reasonable that 
he’d carry those books around with him, so I imagine 
they’re still in his room.” 

“His room’s right on this floor,” said Val. 

Eddie stepped to the French windows and threw^ 
them open, letting a flood of pure, sweet air into the 
room. The rain had ceased, and the stars had come 
out miraculously, studding the heavens above Chesa¬ 
peake Bay with their glory. 

The window opened on a long balcony, or sun-parlor, 
which ran the length of that side of the house. 

“Right at the other end of this balcony,” said Eddie, 
“is where this here handless wonder lives. If the win¬ 
dow isn’t open, I think I know where a cold chisel’ll do 
the most good. We’ll slip in, cop the books- 

“If he isn’t home,” interposed Val. 

“And if he’s home, so much the worse for him, that’s 
all I gotta say,” remarked Eddie. “Nobody can give 
me a wallop like this and get away with it as easy as 
that. Maybe there won’t be nothing left for the po¬ 
lice-” 

“Now, Eddie. None of that stuff around. We’ll be 
thrown out of the hotel, and it’s the only decent one 
this side of Norfolk,” laughed Val. “And anywaj’^, 
that won’t get us anywhere. Of course, if he starts 
any roughhouse, why, we can slip it to him, but I don’t 
think he’ll pull that stuff here. Get the chisel.” 

Eddie unbuttoned his coat; a large chisel stood in 





A JOB OF BURGLARY 


24*1 


his inside pocket, ready for duty. ‘‘I kinda thought 
that at the old house,” he remarked, “we might need it, 
so I brung it along/’ 

“You think of everything, Eddie,” said Val. “Let’s 
go.” 


XXIX 


PRISONERS ! 

In the little cottage on the Pomeroy estate, two 
people faced each other across the table; Jessica dull, 
defeated, tense; Teck nonchalant, the light of victory 
in his greenish eyes, sprawling hugely on a chair, his 
stumps in his pockets, his characteristic attitude, a 
sneer curling his lips; hard and unyielding lips. 

“Thank you,” he was saying. “That should send 
this Morley cub about his business. I am in your 
debt.” He was mockingly polite, the while he held her 
eyes with his. She, unable to wrench her gaze away, 
sat there looking into his burning orbs as though he 
were a serpent and she a bird; the light had burned out 
of her eyes now; she could only look at him, tired and 
surrendered. 

“Don’t be sarcastic, Ignace,” she replied, and her 
voice was like her gaze, even, monotonous, dull, without 
a high light or a quiver in it. “I sent him away be¬ 
cause you ordered me to. If there is nothing else to¬ 
night, you might go away-” 

“There is nothing else to-night, Jessica,” he said, 
and there was an attempt at softness in his tone, and 
a relaxing of the lines about his mouth. “But to¬ 
morrow-” he trailed off into silence, a pregnant 

significant silence. 

“To-morrow?” she intoned. “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t you know?” he asked, and the mocking light 
slipped into his eyes again She shook her head qui- 
242 




PRISONERS! 


243 


etly as if she did not greatly care This man had pos¬ 
session of her, body and soul—or so it was, at the 
moment. What did it matter what to-morrow had to 
bring? 

“To-morrow,’^ he said slowly enunciating each 
word carefully, permitting it to sink in spacing out 
his words so that she could catch the full import of 
what he was saying. ‘‘To-morrow you are going with, 
me to Norfolk. We will take out a marriage license 

in the morning. In the afternoon we will be-” 

“No I No! Not that 1” she burst out, galvanized for 
an instant into life, a fleeting instant that was gone 

almost as it came. “I cannot do that-” 

“Yes, you can,” he said, slowly, gazing full into her 
eyes. The color that had flamed up in her receded 
from her cheeks as quickly as it had come, leaving her 
listless, languid, and complaisant—^liis to order, his to 
do with whatever he willed. 

“To-morrow you will do as I ask, Jessica,” he said 
again, repeating the sentence once more, slowly. 

“Yes, Ignace,” she replied, in a whisper so low he 
could scarcely catch it. SKe was careless of what he 
asked again; it was of no consequence. Had he asked 
her to accompany him to a justice of the peace or a 
minister to-night, she would have done so unquestion- 
ingly now. 

“Ah, exactly, my dear,” he said. “I knew you would 
see it my way.” He was courtly now, and attentive— 
the attitude fitting in a man towards the woman he is 
about to take to his bosom as wife. 

“I’m tired, Ignace,” she said unexpectedly. “I want 

to rest. Now that I have promised-” 

“Of course, my dear,” he replied to this. “Of 
course.” He rose and faced to the door. “I’ll go now. 





24)4 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


To-morrow I’ll be here early. And in the mean¬ 
time-” he turned to her again and his voice grew 

hard, flinty, ‘‘In the meantime, don’t try any non¬ 
sense. I’ve had just about all of that that I can stand 
from you—and from that Morley nuisance. I haven’t 
been hard with you, because I always thought that 
eventually you would come to your senses about this 
matter—but my patience has its limits, Jessica, and I 
want to warn you that I intend to carry my program 
through regardless of what it costs. If persuasion 
won’t work, why, there are other ways.” His voice now 
purred softly, confidentially, like a cat’s, with the same 
suggestion of sheathed claws and sharp, wicked teeth. 

She succeeded, finally, in wrenching away her gaze. 
“Good night,” she said quietly, evenly, not trusting 
herself to look full upon his face. He made as though 
to take her in his arms, but she evaded him with a heed¬ 
less, natural movement that carried her beyond him; 
her cheeks now flamed with color, and had he looked 
closely he would have been able to see the fighting will 
that, dormant until now, was awakening in her depths. 

“Good night,” she said again. 

“Good night,” he replied, and turned toward the 
door. 

At the door he paused once more. “And remember 
what I just told you—you know I don^t joke about such 
things.’^ 

She regarded him in silence as he let himself out, but 
a surprising change came over her as the door closed 
upon him. Her form straightened out, new life came 
into her glorious eyes, and her breath came and went 
more rapidly. She was a different woman; she was pur¬ 
poseful and awake, vibrant with energy and life; a 
woman fighting for her own. 



PRISONERS! 


245 


“Elizabeth,” she called into the kitchen. 

That old woman appeared at the door, her eyes tired, 
her figure sagging. “Has that old he-devil gone?” she 

asked. “I thought he’d never go. He-” She 

caught the expression on her mistress’ face then. 

“Why, Jessica, honey-” she exclaimed, going to 

her and stroking her hand, “what’s the matter ? What 
is it?” She saw fright in her mistress’ face, fright, 
fear, mingled with determination, sudden, unchangeable 
resolve. “Why, Jessica-” 

“I’m all right, Elizabeth. Tell Germinal to harness 
up the horse and get the trap ready. We’re going to 
Norfolk—and back to New York to-night?” 

Elizabeth shook her head. “Germinal’s gone,” she 
said. 

Jessica stared her astonishment. “Gone!” she said. 
“When, and where—why?” 

“A few minutes ago—that crippled old fathead was 
in here, so I couldn’t tell you. If a nigger can get 
pale, that’s the way Germinal looked, the black old 
fool. He came running into the kitchen, nearly dead 
with fright—you could actually see him pale under that, 
brown skin of his. He could scarcely talk—^his tongue 
didn’t seem to be able to work, somehow—frozen to the 
roof of his mouth. Finally, all I was able to get from 
him was that he had seen something, a ghost, I guess— 
he kept talking about how the grave gives up its 
dead-” 

“The grave!” interjected Jessica. 

“Yes. He said graveyards were yawning—his hair 
was actually standing on end. I do declare to good¬ 
ness, I never saw a man so scared as that man Ger¬ 
minal. Said he wouldn’t stay in this place another 
minute—he said it was full of ‘hants’ and that he just 






246 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

saw a dead man disappear into the bushes. He hitched 
up his wagon and went to town lickety-split before I 
had a chance to argue with him or to find out what it 
was all about. The last I seen of him he was layin’ the 
whip on good—you’d be surprised at all the speed he 
could get out of that old bundle of skin and bones that 
he used to say was a horse. I declare to goodness 
gracious I never in all my born days-” 

“Gone!” said Jessica. “Just when I need him so 
badly, too. I wonder what it really is that people 
manage to see around here at night; I never saw any¬ 
thing; did you?” Elizabeth shook her head. 

“But we must get back to Norfolk to-night, Eliza¬ 
beth. I must get away from those eyes—those green 
eyes that look right into me; I’m not my own master 
when he’s looking at me, Elizabeth—he could get me to 
do anything. He seems to project his own will into me, 
somehow; fills me up with himself; he takes possession 
of my senses, Elizabeth—Oh, Elizabeth, I’m afraid of 
him—afraid of what he’ll make me do 1” She was wild 
eyed in her momentary terror. 

“There, there, honey I” Elizabeth soothed her. “It’ll 
be all right—he won’t make you do anything—just say 
the word and I’ll empty a teakettle of boiling water on 
his head, and give him something really to worry about. 
I’ll-” 

“You don’t understand, Elizabeth. The man’s a 
demon—he will stop at nothing, and I’m powerless 
when those terrible eyes catch me like a fish on a hook. 
I must get away-” 

“We’ll walk, then,” decided Elizabeth. “It’s not so 
far, even if it is dark. Get your things, honey, and I’ll 
get dressed, too. We won’t stop for a suitcase. The 
rain’s stopped, and we’d better get right along. 





PRISONERS! 


247 


Hurry,” she called after the girl, who was already on 
her way to her room to get her hat and coat. “We’ll 
give that filthy beast something to think about—when 
he comes to-morrow and finds we’ve gone. Once back 
in New York and——” her voice was lost in the retreat 
to her room. 

A few minutes later they extinguished the lamp in 
the living room and stepped out of the door, closing it 
carefully, and turning the key in the lock. 

“Is there another boat to-night, I wonder,” remarked 
Jessica anxiously. “It seems to me-” 

“Not to-night, I think. Miss Jessica,” replied the 
old woman, “the way I remember these boats. But I 
think we’ll do better to go to Newport News for the 
night—stop in one of the hotels there—and take the 
early morning boat from the Point to Willoughby Spit 
'—he’ll never expect us to do that; in fact, he’ll prob¬ 
ably be on his way out here.” 

“I wonder where Mr. Morley is now,” remarked the 
older woman irrelevantly. 

“I wonder,” came softly from Jessica. “I’d feel a 
whole lot safer if he was with us,” she confessed. 
“Well, come on, Elizabeth,” she said to the old woman, 
who had been lagging behind. “Let’s go as quickly 
as we can.” 

They stepped out into the black road, lined with 
shrubbery, rutted and hard, in the early autumn night. 
Hardly had they gone ten yards when a figure stepped 
in front of them, appearing silently out of the black 
bushes like the veriest apparition. 

“My goodness gracious!” exclaimed Elizabeth in a 
voice that was almost a shriek, so sudden had been the 
appearance of the figure. Jessica did not speak; she 
had been too frightened, momentarily. Her hand went 




248 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


to her bosom, and she stood there, pale, and almost 
swaying from the fright and the shock. 

‘‘Just where does youse folks t’ink youse is gom^ 
huh?” growled the apparition, which now turned out 
to be the young man who had accompanied Teck earlier 
in the evening. 

“Why—why—^we’re—ah—weVe going for a walk, 

though I don’t see what business it is of yours-” 

began Jessica. 

“Oh, youse is goin’ fer er promenahd, huh?” mocked 
the young man. “Well, it is me bizness, an’ don’t let 
nobuddy tell yer diff’runt, see! Just promenahd yer- 
selves back to de porch an’ do yer walkin’ on de porch. 
Dis here night air ain’t none too healthy fer young 
female wimmen—nor fer no old hens, neither,” he glared 
malevolently at Elizabeth, who glared back at him as 
though she would like to scratch his eyes out. 

“Yer see, yer might git yer tootsies wet, walkin’ so 
late,” he explained. “Come on, now,” he ordered, 
seeing that the women were about to remonstrate in¬ 
dignantly. “Don’t gimme none er yer guff about it—I 
got me orders an’ dey gits carried out, see I Me orders 
sez yer stays in dat dere house to-night, an’ dat’s where 
yer stays-” he stepped up to the women threaten¬ 

ingly—“dat is, if yer don’t want ter be knocked fer a 
can of Swedish sardines. Get me?” 

There was a brief silence, with Jessica struggling 
hard to keep back the tears of rage and disappoint¬ 
ment. This man Teck thought of everything. Being 
a trickster himself, he expected trickery in everybody 
—even in the woman he wanted to marry. And the 
maddening part about it was that he had been correct 
in his assumption—that he had outguessed her. 




PRISONERS! 


249 


‘‘Come on! Snap inta it, before I carries yer back 
to der house,” he threatened. 

Jessica and Elizabeth turned without a word, and 
made their way back to the house. 

Jessica was dully conscious of her defeat. It was 
plain to her that she would not get away from that 
house this night—that she would be here in the morn¬ 
ing, when Teck called for her. Her only hope was 
that Val would call first—Elizabeth told her that she 
had explained to Val, and that he would certainly not 
return to New York without first trying to see her. 
He would come in the morning—of that she was cer¬ 
tain; but it was important that he come early; that 
he make his appearance before Teck came upon the 
scene. Otherwise it might be too late. 


XXX 


THE BOOKS AGAIN 

Like two shadows, creatures of the night, Val and 
Eddie crept along the balcony of the hotel. With the 
exception of one or two rooms, that side of the house 
was in complete darkness. One room, far down towards 
the end of the balcony, was lighted, the yellow shaft 
of light cutting across the gloom of the black balcony 
sharply. 

A cold breeze blew from Chesapeake Bay, and the 
men inwardly were grateful that they had thought to 
put on their hats. They could not tell how long they 
would have to stand outside the French windows of 
Teck’s room, which was next to the lighted one, on the 
extreme end of the balcony. Far in the distance was 
the great arc light of Willoughby Spit, a tiny star in 
the tenebrous immensity that lay, like a somber cloak, 
over the bay. Over towards Hampton Roads were the 
riding lights of a couple of battleships, and a few 
electric lights gleamed over Fortress Monroe, leaving 
in black relief the motionless figure of a sentry who 
had stopped, momentarily, high up on one of the bas¬ 
tions of the twelve-inch guns. 

“Two on and four off,” murmured Eddie, noticing 
the sentinel. “Glad I’m off that stuff.” 

^‘S-s-sh’-h!” cautioned his employer, warningly. 

At last they stopped outside the windows of Teck^s 
room. All was dark inside. For a full minute they 
250 


THE BOOKS AGAIN 


251 


paused there, at one side, so as not to present a target 
if by some chance the room was inhabited. They could 
hear nothing, though the window was slightly open and 
they would have been able to distinguish the sound of 
regular breathing had someone been sleeping within. 

“O.K., I guess, Eddie,’^ whispered Val. 

‘‘Yes, sir,’’ replied Eddie, sibilantly. “Shall we go 
in, sir?” 

Val nodded. Cautiously he pushed the window open 
and stepped in over the low sill. Eddie followed him. 
The room was still as the grave. It was not possible 
to see anything. 

“Got the flash, sir?” inquired Eddie. 

“Here it is,” said Val, producing it, and pressing 
the button. “Oh, the devil!” he exclaimed in exaspera¬ 
tion, as no beam of light rewarded his efforts. 

“Hang it all!” he whispered. “The battery’s dead.” 

“‘Wait a minute,” said Eddie. “I’ll pull down the 
shades, and we can switch on the lights. We’ll be out 
of here in a moment, anyway, sir—^long before old 
boy Teck ever gets back.” 

“Go ahead,” consented Val. It seemed safe enough. 
Eddie pulled the shades down carefully, first closing 
the windows tightly. In an instant the room was^ 
flooded with a glare of electric light. 

They looked around them cautiously, silently, 
though there seemed no particular need for silence. 
The books were not in evidence, but that was to be ex¬ 
pected, of course. 

“Here, let’s try this suitcase,” said Val. He opened 
it. It was full of clothing. He tried another. It was 
locked. 

“Eddie, the chisel,” he directed. 

Eddie pried open the suitcase with his cold chisel. 


252 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


utterly ruining the lock. They opened it on the bed, 
pouring out the books thereon. They crowded close, 
bending over the books. 

“Here it is,” announced Eddie triumphantly, pro¬ 
ducing the Bible, a small, compact book bound in the 
conventional black. 

“Now I wonder-he scratched his head contem¬ 

platively, laying his hat on the bed in order that the 
scratching process might be efficient. “I wonder 
what- 

The door of the adjoining room opened quietly, but 
not so quietly that they did not hear it. Both whirled 
on the instant, taken utterly by surprise. It had not 
occurred to either of them that Teck might have both 
rooms. It was so simple that they had just not 
thought of it. 

Framed in the doorway were Horseface and Rat, 
automatic in hand, looking just as brutally dangerous, 
as efficient, as when Val had seen them last, in Teck’s 
rooms on the East Side of New York. 

“If yuh’ll kindly stick up them dere fins a^ yourn,” 
suggested Horseface, “we won’t have ter perforate 
yuh. An’ be dam’ quick. Git me!” 

The hands of Val and Eddie went up slowly. It was 
a trap, and a simple one—one that they had absolutely 
overlooked. Val knew that these men were to meet 
Teck down here, in Virginia, but he had, somehow, 
forgotten the fact. Evidently they had followed on 
the next train. 

“Dishere looks like boiglary ter me,” suggested Rat, 
leering. “Breakin’ open er soot case an’-” 

“I’ll excuse you from the definition of burglary, 
Rat,” broke in Val. “Both you and Horseface, I’ll 
take it for granted, are well acquainted with exactly 





THE BOOKS AGAIN 


253 


what constitutes burglary. Not that burglary, in 
itself, is not one of the fine arts—far from that. 
Simply, at the moment, I don’t think I care for any 
expert instruction-” 

‘‘Aw, close yer trap!” snapped Horseface, “before I 
lets dishere gat go off, carelesslike. Sit down dere on 
de bed, both a’ yer, an’ don’t make no suspicious 
moves, neither; I’m a nervous guy, an’ when I gits 
nervous I presses triggers.” 

Val and Eddie sat down as requested. 

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” inquired 
Val, politely; he appeared calm, even in good spirits, 
the while Eddie sat next to him raging inwardly at 
the childish stupidity of having been trapped so easily. 

“We’re just havin’ a little visit wid yer, that’s all,” 
said the Rat. “We likes yer comp’ny, see! Us an’ 
youse, we’ll just have one a’ dem dere feast a’ reasons 
an’ flow a’ souls, dat’s what. Chawmed t’ meetcha, 
’msure,” he mocked, waving careless circles in the air 
with his ugly blue black automatic. 

“I trust we’re not keeping you awake?” inquired Val 
courteously. “Because if you’d care to go to 
sleep- 

“Naw, dat’s a’ ri’,” said Rat. “We is just as li’ble 
ter put youse ter sleep, if it comes ter dat.” 

Val rose. “If it’s all the same to you- 

“Sit down I” snapped Rat, his gun barrel becoming 
steady instantly. 

Val sat down. “What do you intend to do about 
it?” asked Val. Next to him sat Eddie, his eyes black 
and hard, his mouth a single straight line. He was 
almost burning up with rage. 

“About wot?” queried Horseface. “Youse? Oh, 
dat’s a’ ri’, kid,” he assured him. “De boss’ll be here 




254 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

in a few minits; he’ll tell us. Dis time, if ya gits 
bumped off, ya’ll git bumped off permanent. Git me? 
Me, I gotta wallop on de bean dat I won’t fergit in a 
hurry an’ youse has ter pay fer dat. In de mean¬ 
time, don’t make no move if yer don’t want ter pay 
fer it right erway, dassall I gotta say.” 

They sat in utter silence for awhile, Horseface and 
Rat with their deadly looking weapons in their hands, 
Val chipper and contented, and Eddie disconsolate and 
plainly angry. It was Val who broke the silence at 
last, irrepressible. 

“You people should go into business—^just imagine 
your sign,” he chattered. “Plain and fancy assassina¬ 
tion done here. Victims called for and delivered. Sat¬ 
isfaction guaranteed or your money back!’ There 
should be big money in it, Horseface. There must be 

lots of people who really deserve killing-” 

^ The door opened and Teck entered, taking in the 
situation at a glance. 

“Good evening,” he said courteously. “Still en¬ 
gaged in—er—breaking and entering, I see,” he re¬ 
marked. “Well, well. It’s a bad habit that you really 
ought to break yourself of, Mr. Morley. If you had 
had the proper upbringing-” 

^‘Well, we’re not all gifted in the same direction, 
came back Val. “Some can commit burglary 
successfully, by instinct, like some who shall here be 
nameless he looked at him significantly, ‘^and 

some have to study very hard before they master the 
knack of it. We really ought to study at your feet— 
Maestro!” 

Teck shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Well, 
it wouldn’t do you much harm—^your technique is all 
wrong, anyway. You know, Morley, one of these 




THE BOOKS AGAIN 


255 


days you’re really going to get hurt—I’ll begin to play 
with you for keeps; you won’t have a marble left by the 
time I get done with you, if I ever start that.” 

Val laughed. “You know, Iggy?” he said, 
^‘you’re the most refreshing blackguard it has ever 
been my good fortune to meet. Really, outside 
of musical comedy, I never would have believed you 
existed.” 

Teck bowed as though pleased. ^‘You honor me, my 
friend. We strive to please. But this is not musical 
comedy—the villain wins, Morley.” His face hard¬ 
ened, and the fun went out of it. He was business 
again—a scoundrel engaged in his profession. The 
scar that slashed across his countenance throbbed and 
grew livid. 

“All I have to do,” he said, “is to call the office on 
the phone and explain to them that I found you two in 
my room, rifling my suitcases-” 

Val laughed loudly. “Swell chance!” he exclaimed. 
“I have a life-sized picture of you explaining that to 
the hotel detective—giving him the books as Exhibit A, 
say 1” He paused and looked at the books with mean¬ 
ing. 

“Honest, Teck,” he said, “do you expect me to swal¬ 
low that?” 

Teck was angry. “Then how about shooting you 
and your—er—your friend down, caught in the act of 
burglarizing my room?” he asked grimly. “They 
don’t have to see the books-” 

“I don’t think you will, Iggy,’’ remarked Val light¬ 
ly. “You see, you’re in no position to bear investiga¬ 
tion just at present. In fact, I think we’ll go, Eddie,” 
he said to the man seated beside him. “This man can’t 
stop us.” 




256 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘All right, sir,” said Eddie, putting on his hat with 
care and deliberation, and standing up, 

“I was just about to suggest it,” came from Teck, 
amazingly. He stood in the center of the room, his 
hands characteristically in his pockets, lounging non¬ 
chalantly in front of them. “Understand me, Morley 
—^if I had any particular reason for detaining you^ 
you would stay just as long as I wish you to stay—but 
you’re out of this game for good, anyway—and if 
you’ll take a little friendly advice, you’ll leave for the 
North the first thing in the morning.” 

“I’m out of the game for good!” echoed Val. “Why, 
how did you get any such fool idea.f”’ He stared at 
him in wonderment. 

The other gave him back look for look, and for a 
moment neither spoke in words, but there was much 
that lay between them that was said in their eyes, 
in the lines around their mouths, and in their attitudes. 
It was Teck who spoke first. 

“Miss Pomeroy has finally sent you away. You 
told me yourself that you would be here until she sent 
you away—and she has done so. That should be 
sufficient- 

“It would be sufficient, Iggy,” came back Val, and 
his voice was flinty. “It would be sufficient—^if she 
had. But it was not she who sent me away—^it was 

you. It was you, speaking with her lips-” 

Teck interrupted him with a laugh of mirth. “Oh, 
my Lordl” he said in evident enjoyment. “The kinder¬ 
garten class in mesmerism will please stand up! Is that 
y our regular line of nonsense, Morley—or do you re¬ 
serve it for special occasions, like this.^” 

“Laugh if you like, Iggy—^but you won’t be laugh¬ 
ing long. I’m in this game for keeps—and if I go it 




THE BOOKS AGAIN 


257 


will be feet first. You can tell that to Horseface and 
Rat, here, if you want to—^because Fm going now, 
unless you or they care to stop me.’’ 

He turned with Eddie to the window and threw it 
open. 

“Whaddya say, boss?” queried Rat. *‘Do we give 
’im de woiks—or does de boob git away wit’ it onct 
more?” He punctuated his remarks with his auto¬ 
matic, the while Val turned insolently, poised in the 
sill. 

‘‘Tell him to shoot—if you dare, Iggy,’’ he said 
lightly. 

The eyes of the two men met and held; it was Teck 
who turned his gaze away first. 

“All right, Eddie,” said Val, and turned to Teck for 
a last parting shot. “And Iggy—stay away from the 
Pomeroy place—that’s my last word to you.” His 
expression was without emotion, but his intonation was 
stony. 

Ignace Teck said nothing. They went through the 
window, and closed it carefully behind them. 


XXXI 


THE SECRET HST THE BOOKS 

Back in their rooms, Val and Eddie sat down to talk 
it over. The lightness had, momentarily, dropped 
from him as one drops a cape from his shoulders, and 
he was conscious, again, of defeat. He had had the 
book in his hands—and had lost it again. He felt sure 
that the secret was in the Bible; not that the money 
meant anything to him, but the achievement of his pur¬ 
pose meant a great deal. 

Suddenly, he was irritated with the whole business; 
with the Hotel Chamberlin, the Pomeroy property, 
himself, the money, Eddie. He gave voice to his irrita¬ 
tion audibly. 

“For heaven^s sake, Eddie—donT you know enough 
to take off your hat in the house he asked harshly. 
“That lid—why do men wear derbies, anyway He 
looked at the offending hat irritably. 

“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie. “There are lots of reasons 
for wearing derbies, sir,” he said. “Of course, begging 
your pardon and meaning no disrespect, the primary 
reason is to cover the bean, if I may say so. That be¬ 
ing the case, you would naturally remark that it could 
be done without so much waste space. But-” 

“Are you trying to kid me, Eddie?” demanded Val. 
“Because, if you are-” 

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Eddie. “How can you think 
such a thing—as though I would be so disrespectful! 

258 




THE SECRET IN THE BOOKS 


259 


What I meant to say when you interrupted me, was 
that sometimes even the wasted space in a derby hat 
could be utilized to advantage.” 

He took off the hat, and took a small, thick, black 
bound book out of it. 

It was the Bible they had gone after. 

Open-mouthed, astonished, Val stared; _or a little 
while he was almost speechless. Finally he found voice, 
the while he contemplated Eddie, who sat there, hold¬ 
ing the Bible in his hand and gazing at it admiringly. 

“For the lova Mike, Eddie!” he gasped. “How did 
you ever manage to do that—I never saw you pulling 
it.” 

“Neither did they, sir,” said Eddie, respectfully. 
“It’s a sorta heavy Bible, sir,” he added reflectively., 
“Now, in a silk hat, there would’a been more 
room-” 

“You’d have taken away the suitcase in the silk hat, 
I guess,” said Val, his good temper restored marvel¬ 
ously. “I must admit that you’ve certainly earned 
your salary to-night,” he said. “Any man who can 
actually find a real use for a derby hat has my respect. 
Let’s have that Good Book, and we’ll see what we can 
see.” He took the book from his man’s outstretched 
hand. 

“Better pull the blinds down, I guess, sir,” said 
Eddie, and he did so. “Never can tell what that there 
handless prodigy will be up to.” 

On page two hundred Val found the twenty-sixth 
and twenty-seventh chapters of Deuteronomy, in part. 
He read carefully for awhile, but could see nothing 
that was of significance. 

“Moses seems to have a great deal to say here,” 
commented Val, “but he doesn’t seem to say anything 



260 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

about Peter Pomeroy. Can it be he didn’t know the 
old gent?” 

He returned to his reading of the text. He had an 
idea that perhaps mad old Peter Pomeroy had used a 
part of the text to indicate the hiding place of his 
money-—^but how had he used it? That was the point 
at which Val had to confess himself stumped. 

That, he reflected, was one of the places he consid¬ 
ered himself stumped. There were others. In the 
rush of events this night, he had had no time to think 
about his strange liberation in the old house on the 
Pomeroy grounds. Who was it who had cut him loose 
from his bonds? What ghostly fingers were those that 
had wielded the knife? 

Even now, in the light of his own room, with Eddie 
sitting opposite him, he shivered involuntarily when he 
thought of it. Like the figure of a dream it was—the 
shadow that had been his benefactor there. And yet, 
who was it? The question recurred again and again. 
Flesh and blood it was, of course—it was a sure enough 
knife that had done the cutting; he had felt the con¬ 
crete, fleshly touch of the liberator. 

There was someone prowling around the old estate 
that none of them knew of, he inclined. Someone who, 
knew his way about, too; with the lightness, softness of 
a cat, with the ability to blend with the eccentric, 
ghostly shadows that filled the old place. Someone 
who did not like Teck, it would appear, else why should 
he go to the trouble to cut loose his enemy? 

That there was someone there who would in the 
end have to be reckoned with, Val was sure. He did 
not think that the Unknown had made its last appear¬ 
ance in this matter. He felt that there would be a 
I time when he would be face to face with the Mystery 


THE SECRET IN THE BOOKS 261 


again—and when the Mystery—^he called him that 
mentally—^would speak to him. Was he the strange 
apparition who had appeared to him out of a stroke 
of lightning—who had been revealed to him in an in¬ 
stant, and blotted out in the same instant? Who or 
what was this tiling? 

Val could feel again the touch of those invisible 
fingers as he was released, the creepy feeling that there 
was more about him than he could see with his eyes or 
hear with his ears. 

With a puzzled sigh he went back to his perusal of 
the Bible. He read carefully, slowly, noting every 
word and every letter, and having finished with the two 
pages—two hundred and two hundred and one—^be¬ 
tween which the large bill had lain, he started once 
more, deliberately. 

He had attained halfway down the page when he 
leaned forward with excitement, his eyes bright with 
the discovery. He saw what he had not seen before— 
marks—pencil marks, so slight, so slender and light, 
that it required strong eyes to behold them. He read 
the passage: 

And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this 
law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in 
unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land 
that floweth with milk and honey; as the Lord God of thy 
fathers hath promised thee. 

In this passage the slight mark appeared under the 
words: Go and unto. It was plainly the beginning*of 
a message! He glanced further. Now that he knew 
they were there, he could see more underscorings on 
the page. It was a message from the dead. 


262 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Got it, Eddie!” he exclaimed. “Get a pencil anS 
paper, and take it down as I give it to you.” 

Eddie took out a notebook and wrote down what he 
was told, sitting there in silence, not disturbing his em¬ 
ployer by so much as an unnecessary movement. 

“Put down ‘Go unto,’ Eddie,” said Val. 

Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that 
ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, 
in Mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaister them with plaister. 

Mount was underscored—the only word in the pas¬ 
sage underscored. Through the succeeding passages 
iVal spelled out the word— Monroe; the letters of this 
were spelled out in sequence from different words in the 
text. 

“Mount Monroe,” dictated Val. “Got that—Go 
unto Mount Monroe.?” 

“Yes, sir,” said Eddie. The rest of the message was 
short, spelled out through the chapter in the same 
way, letter by letter. 

It read, in fuU: 

“Go unto Mount Monroe, to the secret cave known only 
to Jessica, my daughter. To her, my sole relative and 
heir, is left all that is there contained. 

Peter J. Pomeroy. 

Val leaned back in blissful contemplation of this, 
So there really was treasure. Doubloons, pieces of 
eight, Spanish gold! It was more or less like a novel of 
adventure, he told himself. He had never been in this 
on account of the money. As a matter of fact, he had 
doubted gravely that there really was any money hid¬ 
den, buried, or wherever it was that people put money 
away, if they did not put it in banks. 

And now it had come true, miraculously, like a fairy 


THE SECRET IN THE BOOKS 


263 


story; like a tale that is told. It gave a sharp zest 
to life, this thing. To go hunting for buried treasure, 
and to find that, somewhere, there is treasure really 
buried! His blood had not so raced through his veins 
since the first time he had raptly read through the 
pages of Stevenson’s epic of buried treasure and vil¬ 
lainy and bloodcurdling adventure. 

“So there really is something in it, Eddie,” he ex¬ 
claimed. 

“It seems so, sir,” answered Eddie. “ Where is this 
here Mount Monroe, anyway.?” 

“I guess Miss Pomeroy’ll know. Secret caves on 
mountains! It was almost too good to be true. And 
he had uncovered it himself—that would weigh with 
Jessica, he considered. Perhaps . . • 

He allowed himself to sink away into a reverie about 
the girl with hidden lights in the coils of her hair. 
There was that dream he had had about a wedding. 
. . . Now, it was not impossible for such a dredm to 
come true. Men have married women before ... he 
considered. ... Not such women as Jessica, of course, 
but it was possible that to them the women had seemed 
just as wonderful. That was absurd, of course . . . 
as if any woman could be as wonderful as Jessica; yet 
men were foolish, and they had their dreams. 

“To-morrow morning, Eddie,” he said, “we start out 
early—at daybreak. We’ll get Miss Pomeroy to go 
with us—the note says she knows where the cave is— 
and we’ll have the loot before old boy Iggy is out of 
bed. Then back to New York—maybe.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Eddie. “After breakfast, sir,” he 
supplied. 

Val laughed. “This is no time to think of food, 
Eddie. Haven’t you any soul for romance.?” 


264. THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Yes, sir,” said Eddie. “This here romance thing 
is more romantic on a full stomach, though.” 

“Well, go to bed, Eddie. I’m going to turn in.” 

Eddie went into his room and prepared for the night. 
Val made his preparations quickly, threw open the 
window full, and turned out his light. There was a 
table near the window, and on it he threw the Bible 
which he had abstracted from Teck’s room. 

“Good night, Eddie,” he called. 

“Good night, sir,” came a sleepy voice. 

The room was bathed in darkness and in sleep; the 
slumberous shadows were deep except near the window, 
where a wan moon somewhat lightened the gloom with 
a thin, cold, silvery light. 

From far off, across the bay, came the bell of a 
vessel, to be answered by other bells, mellowed by their 
passage over the water. Here and there on the water 
the great searchlight of Fortress Monroe played un¬ 
ceasingly, vigilantly, and somewhere below, far on the 
road, an automobile chugged noisily on its way. 

Outside Val’s window two shadows halted—a large 
bulk, on whose handless stumps the moon played, 
shrouding them in a ghastly light, and another, smaller, 
who held in his hand a flashlight. 

“There it is—on the table,” whispered a hoarse 
voice, when Teck had got accustomed to the darkness. 
The table stood by the window, bathed in the light of 
the moon, and was easily discernible. 

The smaller man reached in and seized the book. 
Outside, on the balcony, he played his flashlight on 
the cover. 

“That’s it,” hissed the voice of Teck, 

They were gone. 


THE SECRET IN THE BOOKS 265 


It was almost like a nightmare. Val sat up in bed 
and called to Eddie. 

“Asleep, Eddie?” he asked. 

“What is it, sir?” came back a sleepy voice. 

“The Bible—it’s stolen again,” said Val. 

There was a scuffle—Eddie leaping out of bed. “It 
would be, sir,” he said, coming into the room. “Shall 
I go and get it? That book has traveled more-” 

“No, don’t bother, Eddie. Let them have it,” re¬ 
plied Val. “I’m too tired to bother about it.” 

“I know, sir,” remonstrated Eddie, awake now. 
“But the dope about the money—they might uncover 
that- 

“I think not, Eddie,” yawned Val sleepily. He 
reached under his pillow. 

“You see,” he said, “I rather expected a visit some 
time to-night. He won’t be suspicious if he has the 
Bible—and I don’t mind.” He handed Eddie a sheet of 
paper he had produced from under his pillow. It was 
the page of the Bible containing the data indicated by 
Peter Pomeroy, neatly cut out. 

“Good night, sir,” said Eddie, 




XXXII 


NIGHT ALARMS 

They were not destined, however, to finish out the 
night with sleep. There are some nights, sometimes, 
into which Fate seems anxious to crowd in the experi¬ 
ence of a lifetime, as though there would never be any 
more nights for her to play with. This night was al¬ 
ready badly jammed with events, but they were not yet 
through, though the next act of destiny was not 
directly involved with VaFs affairs. Fate was not yet 
finished. She still had a trump card up her sleeve to 
play, and she played said card just before the dawn, 
when the night was blackest and when men slept the 
soundest. 

Val was awakened by a fit of coughing. He opened 
his eyes slowly, sleepily, and though his window was 
open it seemed to him that the atmosphere was stifling; 
that it was almost impossible for him to breathe. 
There was a pungent, acrid element in the atmosphere; 
something he was unaccustomed to; something that his 
tortured lungs rejected. From afar, through his semi¬ 
conscious state, he heard a sound of crackling. In 
the next room he caught the creaking of the springs of 
the bed as Eddie turned from side to side, in his sleep, 
evidently also endeavoring to breathe. 

Suddenly, instantly, however, he was awake—awake 
to the fullest extent. Through the great corridors 
outside, ringing up and down the wooden walls, came 
the dread cry that sometimes comes in the night. 

266 


NIGHT ALARMS 


267 


«Fire!” 

Fire! The one element of which all animals are in¬ 
stinctively afraid—the element man has harnessed to 
his own use, and which, sometimes escaping from the 
bonds, turns on man with deadly, vicious effect. 

Fire! 

The sound shrieked through the corridors again, and 
was taken up here and there in different parts of the 
great hotel. Val was on his feet in an instant, switch¬ 
ing on the lights with almost the same motion. From 
the next room came Eddie, dragging with him his trou¬ 
sers, a sleepy tfigure in pink silk pajamas and scarcely 
opened eyes. The room was full of smoke, and it was 
hard to breathe—^getting harder every moment. 

Val opened his door, and shut it instantly. The 
corridor was thick with rolling billows of choking 
smoke, and in the distance, at the end, he saw the dull 
red of flames leaping the height of the hall. 

“Eddie, let^s go!’^ gasped Val. “This old rattle¬ 
trap of a hotel’ll go up like tinder—I know this place. 
No chance.” 

“Right, sir!” Eddie shouted back at him. 

The men jumped for their suitcases, and shoveled 
their belongings, as many of them as they could reach, 
hastily into the leather receptacles. There was not 
a moment to be lost. The smoke was now rolling into 
the room, through the skylight and through the cracks 
around the door. The men could hardly breathe. 

“By the window, Eddie!” commanded Val. He knew 
there was no chance through the halls, which must by 
now be an inferno of fire and smoke. They were only 
one flight up, and it would be no difficult thing to slide 
down one of the pillars. 

“All right, sir,” said Eddie. 


268 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


Val jumped for the window and started to go. 
‘‘Come on,’^ he shouted over his shoulder. He heard 
no answering footsteps, and looked back, 

Eddie was struggling mightily to get into his 
trousers. 

“Come on, Eddie!” he shouted again. “There’s no 
time for that.” 

“I won’t go out without my pants,” shouted Eddie 
obstinately, struggling still harder to persuade the 
refractory garment to envelop his nether extremities. 
In his excitement he had them turned around wrong, 
and another few precious seconds were wasted in turn¬ 
ing them around. 

“Damn your respectability, Eddie!” shouted Val, 
knowing that in another instant the flames would be 
leaping into the room. By that time Eddie was inside 
his beloved pants. The red flames were already show¬ 
ing over the transom and licking in around the edges 
of the door. 

The men hurried out on the balcony. Eddie care¬ 
fully threw the suitcases over. “All right, chief,” he 
said, and motioned to the pillar. 

Val dropped over the balcony, wrapped his legs 
around the smooth column, and slid down, acquiring 
thereby three splinters in inconvenient places. In an 
instant Eddie was standing beside him on the ground. 
Their automobile was still standing at the curb, where 
Val had placed it when he returned from the Pomeroy 
place. Eddie deposited the suitcases therein and 
cranked the machine up quickly. He drove it to a spot 
a hundred yards farther on, out of the line of danger. 

In the meantime Val, in bathrobe and slippers, ran 
around to the front entrance to see whether there was 
anything he could do, any assistance he could give. 


NIGHT ALARMS 


269 


From all sides came guests, scantily clad, hundreds 
of guests ; the Chamberlin, at this time, was full. There 
was little anyone could do. The fire had already at¬ 
tained a glorious start and, as Val had predicted, the 
hotel went up like tinder. It was built of wood through¬ 
out, with the exception of the foundations, and there 
was no chance of stopping it. 

By some miracle nobody was hurt, although hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of dollars in personal belongings 
were lost in the haste of the escape. The Chamberlin 
was now blazing to the skies at the west end, illumin-* 
ing the land and the sea for miles. It was a red pit 
of leaping, devilish flame. There was an occasional 
crash somewhere inside of the place as some great tim¬ 
ber fell. There was the continual tinkle of broken 
glass, and through every window the flames leaped, 
gaining headway incredibly. 

Through the rent night sounded the thin, golden 
call of the bugle at Fortress Monroe, a few hundred 
yards away. It was the fire call. In a few minutes 
the soldiers were there, dragging their equipment, piti¬ 
fully impotent against the magnitude of the debacle. 
Other organizations were there almost as soon—they 
came from Phoebus first, and then from Hampton, and 
then from Newport News, the last a great, chugging 
monster of a motor truck. 

The thin lines of water were absolutely lost in the 
ever-climbing flames. And now the dawn began to 
come in over the sea, a golden dawn that was thinned, 
somehow, against the wonder of the great pile of flame. 
Hundreds of people crowded in front of the hotel, 
watching it burning. It was said on authority that 
everyone seemed to be out, and that being the case, 
Val and Eddie returned to their automobile and dressed 


270 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


in haste. Then they returned to the fire, but there 
was nothing to do but watch. No human agency could 
stop that devouring monster of flame, though the fire¬ 
men worked like diminutive, foreshortened demons 
against it, scurrying here and there, all but being 
caught under the fall of some wall or column, even 
darting inside the red hot walls where they thought 
some human might be penned. It was the last of the 
famous old hotel. 

“What about Miss Pomeroy?’^ asked Eddie, turning 
to his employer. 

Val regarded him in silence. “Why, I guess you’re 
right,” he said at length. “Now would seem to be the 
time to get out there and dig up old Pomeroy’s money, 
wouldn’t it?” 

Eddie nodded. 

“I don’t think Teck’ll go out there for an hour or 
two yet—its only five o’clock now. We can be finished 
by the time he comes.” 

Val acquiesced. “That’s right. It’ll be just as well 
if we can get that done before he gets out. There are 
complications whenever he shows up.” 

In a few moments they had the flivver pointed to¬ 
ward Hampton, and were chugging on their way. The 
trip was not a long one—^fifteen or twenty minutes 
sufficed to cover the intervening ground. They knew 
where Teck was, so there was no necessity of hiding 
their machine before advancing upon the cottage. 
They stopped beside the door. 

The Virginia hills, at that time of the morning, just 
tipped by the rising sun, were at their prettiest, blue in 
the distance, softened in the ambient air. Bird life 
had already awakened, and there came to them, 
through the twittering of the small birds, the lusty 


NIGHT ALARMS 271 

f 

crowing of a rooster ushering in his friend, the 
sun. 

They knocked on the door, and waited a few min¬ 
utes for an answer, 

“Terrible time to go calling,” muttered Val. Drag¬ 
ging them out of bed at this time. Guess they won’t 
mind, though, when they hear what I have to say.” 

He knocked again. Still there was no answer—no 
sign of life in the cottage. “Sound sleepers,” he said, 
thundering upon the resonant door with the knocker. 
Nobody stirred within. 

“That’s funny,” he said. “Somebody ought to have 
heard that. I wonder . . .” he turned and looked at 
Eddie, inquiringly. 

“Never can tell, sir,” said Eddie sententiously. 
“Let’s look around.” 

A walk around the house soon showed them that the 
kitchen window was open. 

“Of course,” commented Val, “it’s hardly the ap¬ 
proved mode of entering a lady’s home, but , . 

Eddie was already inside, not waiting to trouble 
himself with the ethics of the case. A moment later 
Val followed him. 

There was not a sign of life in the rooms. A rapid 
glance at the beds showed them that they had not been 
slept in. 

Jessica was gone. 


XXXIII 


THE SEARCH FOR THE GIRL 

The two men stared at each other in puzzlement. 
This was a development that they had not looked for. 
Last night—^not so early, either—they had left Jessica 
and the old woman Elizabeth here. Nothing was said 
about any proposed departure—that is, except the 
proposed departure of Val, which had been suggested 
by Jessica, and which he never had any intention of 
carrying out, even had not Elizabeth stopped them 
and explained the case. 

He knew for certain that Jessica intended to stay 
here for a time; certainly she had had no intention of 
leaving last night. If she had left, it had been a sud¬ 
den affair. Perhaps . . . 

*^1 think this is where the fine Italian mitt of old 
boy Teck comes in,” put in Eddie, speaking VaPs 
thought. “What do you think, sir?” 

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” answered Val. “They 
went awfully quick, it seems to me. The point at issue 
is—where did she go and where is she now—to say 
nothing of why did she go?” 

They stood in the little living room and discussed 
the matter from several different angles. 

“It seems to me,” said Val, “that if she has gone 
some place in a hurry—^in such a hurry—it must be 
against her will. The only one who would make her 
do anything against her will is Teck, of course. That 
272 


THE SEARCH FOR THE GIRL 273 

eliminates the rest of the world, Eddie. Now, where 
is she now?’^ 

“Well, my guess is that she’s where Teck can keep 
an eye on her—to see that she stays put. Now, last 
night, as we know, sir, Teck was at the Chamberlin.” 
He looked significantly at Val. 

“My God!” ejaculated Val. “She might-” 

The rest of it was lost, because he bolted for the 
flivver and cranked her up violently. Only by making 
a flying leap for the seat was Eddie able to go along, 
so quickly did Val do things now. 

For the first time there was rage in VaPs heart 
against Teck. Up to now he had been intrigued by 
the novelty of the chase, the refreshment of the ad¬ 
venture, just when he had thought that life was drab 
and stale; and if he had had any feeling against Teck 
at all—leaving out the resentment at the murder of 
Mat Masterson—^it was one of a rather curious sort 
of gratitude. 

But now Teck had seemingly struck at Val’s most 
vital place. When an attempt had been made on Val’s 
life by Teck, he had foiled it and held no rancor; it was 
just another thing that had happened. But to cause 
Jessica to disappear—that was another thing entirely, 
and an important one. Somehow, Val construed it as 
a direct attack on himself; as a matter of fact it hit 
him far harder than an attack on himself could ever 
have done. He was perfectly willing to admit what a 
tremendous hold Jessica had taken on him. She meant 
to him all that life held worth while; she meant his 
future; his present; his Paradise. It was not some-? 
thing he would give up without a memorable struggle. 

He was sure that they had hit on the solution. That, 
if Jessica was gone, she was somewhere in Teck’s 


274 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


power. These things flashed through VaFs mind as he 
forced the car to its utmost speed over the rough roads 
back to the Point. They bounced from side to side 
in the jolting, swaying car, taking the rough spots on 
high, slowing down for no curves and corners. 

Far in front of them a great column of smoke rose 
to the everlasting skies, and sometimes this black, bil¬ 
lowing mass was shot through and through with leap¬ 
ing flames. The Chamberlin was still burning fiercely. 
Coming from Hampton they had to slow up a bit, be¬ 
cause the roads were full of people all bound for the 
fire, on foot, in horsedrawn vehicles, and in motor 
cars. 

They made the best time they could, however, seem¬ 
ing oblivious to the maledictions that were hurled at 
them from pedestrians whom they missed narrowly, and 
drivers of motor cars which missed them narrowly. At 
last they drew up in front of the great pyre that had 
been the Chamberlin. 

It was mostly all smoke now, though here and there 
the flames, red, hungry, angry, still licked through 
the swirling blackness of the smoke. The hotel was 
almost completely gutted, a great heap of blackened 
ruins, and the smell of burning wood and cloth filled 
the air. 

A large crowd stood against the sea wall, thou¬ 
sands of spectators. Val looked at them hastily, 
keenly. He was looking for Teck. This big man would 
know where Jessica was, he was sure. He would drag 
the information from him if he had to do it in front of 
these thousands of people. 

Angrily he strode through the crowd, leaving Eddie 
in the car to keep the engine running. He thought 
it possible he might have to take another hurried trip. 


THE SEARCH FOR THE GIRL 275 


He did not know where, or why—but you never could 
tell, he told himself. He examined the massed hu¬ 
manity sharply, searching ever for the one face. Teck 
was large; he should not have been hard to pick out 
of such a crowd, and Val thought it quite likely that 
he was there. His fingers itched to be at the big 
man’s throat; he did not think of him as a cripple, a 
man without hands. He thought of him as something 
vicious, something dangerous, something to be shaken 
like a rat, crushed like a snake. 

His eyes were red and bloodshot from lack of suffi¬ 
cient sleep, but they were keen and alert, and his large 
bulk gained for him ready access into the crowd of 
people, ready passage through them where a smaller 
man might have been at a disadvantage. He scru¬ 
tinized all who came within his vision closely, sharply, 
but could not see Teck. Once he thought he saw his 
figure in front of him, looming over the people around. 
The man’s back was turned, so he could not be sure, 
and by the time he had forced his way to where he 
had seen the figure, it had disappeared. 

But there were thousands of people there, and it 
could easily have been that Teck was in the crowd and 
he had not seen him, Val told himself. The entire 
population, it seemed to him, of Hampton and Phcebus 
and a half dozen other smaller towns in the locality, 
had turned out to the fire, and the crowd was being 
augmented every minute by arrivals from Newport 
News and still farther towns that had heard of the 
fire, and had seen its smoke in the placid Virginia skies. 

Once he caught a glimpse of the Rat in the crowd—‘ 
a few feet ahead of him. He dived for the gangster, 
plunging through the mass of people, scattering them 
right and left, but by the time he had arrived at the 


276 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


spot the Rat had slipped away somewhere else, glid¬ 
ing through the throng easily, with city-bred slipper¬ 
iness. 

He pushed his way to the front, and stood for a 
moment in thought. It was plain that he had little 
chance of finding Teck in this constantly growing 
crowd, unless it was by accident. 

A hand touched his arm, lightly, and a beloved 
voice came through the air to him. 

‘‘Oh, Val, how glad I am to find you here!” 

He whirled swiftly, a great relief in his heart. 
Jessica was standing next to him. 


XXXIV 


WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWNED 

A WARM, grateful glow enveloped Val as he looked 
upon Jessica’s sHght figure standing there beside him 
in the crowd. There were thousands of people around 
them, yet the others seemed to him as shadows on a 
screen; he thought he and Jessica were the only reali¬ 
ties there, the only beings of flesh and blood. Every¬ 
one else was out of focus; of two dimensions only. He 
felt the touch of her hand on his arm, and it thrilled 
him through his clothes. 

So she was safe! A sigh of relief escaped him, and 
his whole world seemed different. Now, the fire in 
front of them, for instance. What a splendid bonfire 
the Chamberlin made! How appropriate, in this vast 
expanse of sea and sky. It seemed to him like a bon¬ 
fire of celebration—rejoicing in the fact that he was 
once more together with Jessica; that she was stand¬ 
ing next to him and he could hear the soft caress in 
her gentle tones. 

“How glad I am to find you here!” 

He said the words to himself, over and over, swiftly 
Truly, they rang pleasantly on the ear. She was glad 
to see him. That was miraculous—and yet it was as it 
should be. Last night she had sent him away. He 
contrasted her utterances with those of last night, and 
could not bring himself to credence in the fact that 
it was the same girl. It was not the same girl, he told 
277 


278 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

himself. Last night Teck had spoken to him with the 
lips of Jessica. That was last night. This morning 
Jessica was speaking to him with the heart of Jessica. 
That was this morning—end forever. 

He turned to her with shining eyes. 

‘‘Glad!” he said. “If you knew how happy I am to 
see you, Jessica, you would- 

“Of course,” she said. “I know.” Quietly, with 
infinite understanding. 

“How do you happen to be here.?” he asked, simply 
for the sake of talking. It did not make much differ¬ 
ence to him what he said, so long as he stood there 
talking with her—saying something that would cause 
her to answer; that would cause her voice to ring upon 
his ears. In front of them the Chamberlin smoked and 
burned fitfully, yet they saw it not. A great crowd 
of people hemmed them in on all sides, but it was as 
though they were alone. 

“IPs quite a story,” she said. He turned to her 
inquiringly. 

She told him the story readily, apologizing for her 
attitude last night when he had called after returning 
from the old house. She told him of how Teck had 
made her promise to marry him to-day—and of how 
she had resolved to cast off his baneful influence over 
her by flight back to New York, there to hide herself 
away from him, somewhere. Of how she had discovered 
that Teck had anticipated such a move, and guarded 
against it. 

After she and Elizabeth had returned to the house 
they had held a council of war to decide on ways and 
means. She had been almost ready to give up, but 
she was thankful that Elizabeth was made of sterner 
stuff. They had finally decided to wait an hour or 



WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWNED 279 


more, and try to slip out by the kitchen window. 
Teck’s man could not watch all sides of the house at 
once, and it had seemed as though they had rather 
more than an even chance of making it. 

And so it turned out. It happened so easily that 
she could scarcely understand her hesitation. They 
had gone through the window and merged themselves 
with the shadows immediately, keeping away from the 
road until they were quite half a mile away from 
the house. Then they took to the road and were in 
Hampton in a short time. At Hampton they found 
a room in a quiet hotel. 

^‘And you intended-he began. 

*‘To leave by the first boat. Ignace would be going 
out to the cottage, I thought. It would never occur 
to him to look for me here, of course. By the time 
he discovered my absence I would be on my way to 
New York.” 

He looked at her, puzzled for a moment. ‘^Then 
what are you doing here now?” he asked. “Don’t you 
know that Teck must be here somewhere—^if he sees 
you all your plans will be knocked into a cocked 
hat.” 

“Why, I’m here because-she flushed to the tips 

of her tiny ears suddenly, and was awkwardly, de¬ 
liciously silent. “Why,” she began again, “be¬ 
cause-” 

It came to him at once why she was here. How 
stupid he had been not to guess. Why, she was here 
because he was stopping at the Chamberlin, and she 
was afraid something might have happened to him 
in the fire. Crudely he put the question to her, with 
masculine lack of reserve. 

^‘You—^you came to see if I was safe?” he asked, a 





280 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


little incredulously, a little amazed that she should 
do this just because of her interest in him. She did 
not answer, but from her expression he could see that 
he had hit upon the answer. She suddenly showed a 
great and absorbing interest in the fire. 

“Whereas Elizabeth?” he asked her. 

“She’s here,” replied Jessica. They turned and 
located Elizabeth standing about a dozen feet from 
them, stonily and determinedly intent on letting them 
have their tete-a-tete without interruption from her. 

^‘I just came from the cottage,” announced Val. “I 
went out to see you-” 

“So early,” she murmured. 

“Yes,” he replied. ^‘You see, it’s of very great im¬ 
portance. It’s about the missing money—I think I’ve 
located it.” 

Her look of interest was good to see. “Really!” she 
said. He felt her hand tighten on his arm. It just 
occurred to both of them that she had not drawn her 
hand away. That she had left it there after touching 
his arm to draw his attention to her. The effect on 
Val was to make him absurdly happy. The effect on 
Jessica was to make her draw her hand away hastily, 
—^but not too hastily. There seemed a kind of re¬ 
luctance in it. 

“I think so,” he continued. “But this is no place 
to discuss it. I say, I’m awfully hungry—I could do 
with a little breakfast. How about you? There’s a 
frice little restaurant in Phoebus that I know—^w^e could 
all go there. It’s still very early, and we could eat 
and get out to your place before Teck starts, I 
think.” 

Phoebus is a little town immediately outside of For¬ 
tress Monroe and Old Point Comfort, inhabited mostly 



WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWNED 281 


by old blue clad men who stand on the street comers 
and argue about Pickett’s charge, or the first battle of 
Bull Run. Men to whom the Civil War is still far 
more of a reality than the World War just completed.. 

‘‘I’m famished,” confessed Jessica. “We can talk 
at breakfast—^Elizabeth knows everything I know.^’ 

“Eddie Hughes is in this with me—and we want to 
include him when we make plans,” said Val. “So that’s 
all right. Let’s go.” 

They called Elizabeth, and pushed their way through 
the crowd to where Eddie sat in the flivver waiting 
for them. In three minutes they were in a quaint 
little restaurant, being waited on by the proprietor 
himself. Nobody else was in the place, the fire being 
a far greater attraction there than a mere meal, which 
one could have at any time. 

Over the breakfast, which was an excellent one, they 
discussed the affair. Val told them the events of the 
last night. How he had come alone to the cottage 
and found Teck there, and had continued on alone to 
the old house. He described vividly to them the strug¬ 
gle there and how he had awakened, bound, in the 
dilapidated living room. He told of the blood dripping 
through the ceiling, and of the woman’s scream he had 
heard ringing through the night. 

“That was me,” admitted Jessica. 

“You!” echoed Val in amazement. She nodded. 

“Why, how on earth did you come to be there at 
that time of night, alone, and-” 

“It was rather a crazy idea,” she dimpled. “You 
see, after Ignace left—the first time—he came back 
later, you know—and still you did not appear, I 
decided that it was quite possible you had gone on 
alone—so I went after you. When I got there the 



282 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


door to the living room downstairs was locked. I 
could not see you in any of the other rooms, and 
thought you might be upstairs. Oh, how frightened 
I was, all alone in that old house, with the storm 
pounding so I When I got upstairs above the living 
room I saw a body lying on the floor in the dark, and 
I thought it was you—that was the first thing that 
occurred to me.” She said this frankly, as though it 
were quite natural that she should think of him first. 
‘‘My nerves were all unstrung, with the dark and the 
storm and the lightning and thunder, and being alone 
there, and I lost control of them completely for a min¬ 
ute and screamed. That’s the scream you heard. At 
that moment Ignace and another man seized me and 
dragged me out. I hardly knew what I was doing— 
they took me back to the cottage. The storm was 
making so much noise I guess you couldn’t have heard 
us.” 

So that cleared up another mystery, Val thought. 
But there was still another he was thinking of—the 
mysterious man who had appeared to him in the flash 
of lightning; Val rather thought that it was that same 
man who had cut him loose. Who was he.^ 

He told them about the incident, and described the 
man carefully. 

“It could be anybody around here,” said Jessica. 
“Half the men down here wear that kind of hat and 
have goatees. I don’t know who it could have been. 
Why should he come in and cut you loose—^if it was 
he?” 

Val shook his head. “I give it up,” he laughed. 
“Do you know, for awhile he seemed to me like a 
ghost. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I suppose I came 
as close to seeing one last night as I’ll ever come. 


WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWNED 288 


Why, he had that unearthly look when I saw him at 
the window- 

‘‘That^s funny/’ broke in Elizabeth, who had hith¬ 
erto taken no part in the conversation, but had 
listened with rapt attention. “That’s very funny.” 

“What is?” asked Val and Jessica. 

“Why, about a ghost, you know,” said the old 
woman. “You know, Germinal said he saw a ghost— 
said that graveyards were yawning and graves giving 
up their dead. He was as scared as I ever seen a 
nigger or anyone else be. He trembled like a leaf.” 

wonder if he could have seen the same—ah— 
thing—that you saw,” Jessica turned to Val. 

“I don’t know,” said Val, “but last night was cer¬ 
tainly the right kind of a night to see such things, 
I’ll tell the world. If ever there was a stage set for 
the appearance of things that don’t belong with the 
living, there was one set last night.” He shivered 
involuntarily, and smiled immediately. “When I think 
of that old house in the dark, with the rain pounding 
on it like on a drum . . 

He trailed off into a silence, lost in the wonder of 
Jessica’s eyes; he could almost feel himself falling . . . 
falling . . . falling . . . into their deeps, losing his 
identity in them, drenched with their loveliness. He 
brought himself back with a jerk, just before the 
silence became awkward. 

“But I was telling you about where the money is,” 
he said, coming back to the business on hand. “Do 
you know where Mount Monroe is?” he inquired of 
Jessica. 

She nodded. “Why, that’s on our property—it’s 
not really a mountain, you know. Just a hill, about 
a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet high, at the 



284 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


most. Heavily wooded—over the east end of our 
place. Why.?’’ 

“Do you know a secret cave there.? One known to 
only yourself and your father.?” 

Her eyes lighted up with remembrance. “Of course!” 
she declared. “Away up, near the top. The front of 
it is covered with brush and stones, so that you’ll 
never guess there’s a cave there. What great times I 
used to have playing there when I was a kid—I dis¬ 
covered it, you know. I never told anybody about 
it but my father—^it was our secret. And the 
money-” 

“Here,” said Val, handing her the memorandum 
Eddie had written at his dictation the night before. 

*‘Go unto Mount Monroe, to the secret cave known only 
to Jessica, my daughter. To her, my sole relative and 
heir, is left all that is there contained. 

Peter J. Pomeroy.** 

Her face lighted up in comprehension. 

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “If that isn’t just like 
my father—dear old man. That’s just the very place 
he would have thought of. I’m surprised it never oc¬ 
curred to me. How did you discover all this.?” she 
asked Val. 

He told her how he had located the information 
desired in the Bible—the book which had traveled so 
often between the two factions in this affair. “Your 
father died so suddenly, Jessica-” 

“Yes, I was in Europe at the time. If he had had 
time, he would surely have told me where to look for 
the information. It’s just the kind of a thing he 
would do, you know. He was mad on the one idea of 
conserving his money, poor father. And to think I 
never saw him in life again.” 




WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWNED 285 


There was a deep silence, in reverence for a memory 
of the departed. It was Jessica herself who broke the 
silence at last. 

“And now-” she queried on a rising voice. 

^‘And now,’’ said Val, “if we’re all through eating, I 
move that we all go out to Mount Monroe just as 
quickly as that old flivver can jerk us out there, 
collect your money—and go back to New York.” 

“And Ignace-objected Jessica. 

“He won’t know where we are, I think,” said Val. 
“We don’t have to go near the cottage to get to Mount 
Monroe, do we?” 

“No—^we can get to it from the other direction,” 
said Jessica—“from the side on which the old haunted 
house stands.” 

“All right,” directed Val. “It won’t take long—^we 
can go right out, get the loot, and get back here prob¬ 
ably in an hour.” The party rose simultaneously, 
while Val laid a bill on the table to pay for the meal. 

Suddenly he saw Jessica grow pale; the mask of 
fear crept over her countenance again as she stared, 
fascinated, at the door. Instinctively, everybody 
turned to the door, drawn by her fixed look. 

Bulked in the doorway, smiling upon them pleas¬ 
antly, was the great figure of Ignace Teck. 




XXXV 


THE CHASE 

He was characteristically his lazy, lounging self 
now, hands—ostensibly, of course, he seemed to have 
hands—thrust deep into his pockets, a courteous, non¬ 
chalant smile upon his lips, his face turned so that 
the livid scar that disfigured one cheek was invisible at 
the angle. He lounged up to Jessica, seemingly ob¬ 
livious to the rest of the party. 

‘‘Having a party, I see," he remarked pleasantly. 
“Good idea; I feel rather hungry myself.” She shrank 
back from him, not daring to meet his eyes, and yet 
unable to move a step back. She said nothing; just 
stood there, the pallor of her cheeks contrasting 
piteously with the splendor of her hair, her eyes gone 
dead of a sudden. 

“You remember you have an appointment with me 
to-day,” Teck reminded her. “It^s something of a 
surprise to see you here, you know. I thought- 

“You thought she was waiting for you, safely caught 
in her cottage in the woods, didn’t you, Iggy?” said 
Val, stepping in between them. With a grateful glance 
at Val, Jessica stepped aside, glad to have someone 
else distract Teck’s attention. 

“What is that to you?” asked Teck maliciously, still 
courteous, still mild and smiling. “Miss Pomeroy’s 
movements- 

“Miss Pomeroy’s movements interest me, Iggy. 

286 




THE CHASE 


287 


Peculiar, isn’t it?” smiled Val. ‘‘Sorry if my presence 
here seems to upset any of your plans; but of course 
you can make others, can’t you? That’s one of the 
best things you do.” 

“Oh, one can always change one’s plans, you know,” 
assented Teck carelessly. 

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, Iggy, you can 
change yours right now,” said Val, still smiling as 
pleasantly as Teck himself. There was an under¬ 
current of menace in his tone, however, that Teck 
caught and read aright. 

He glanced straight into Val’s eyes before answer¬ 
ing, hesitating a moment, picking his words, evidently. 

“Do you propose to do the changing?” he asked 
innocently, but his tone was flinty. 

“I do,” announced Val. “I propose to change your 
plans so much that you’ll wish you never had seen 
me- 

“If you must know, my friend, I wish that now,” 
put in the big man. 

“Well, then, if I’m your friend, you’d better take 
the advice of a friend and get out right now,” said 
Val dangerously. 

“Surely you’re not afraid of me,” mocked Teck. 
“Why, what harm can I, a poor creature without-” 

“Never mind that stuff,” broke in Val rudely. “I’ve 
heard it before, and it won’t get you anywhere with 
me.” Teck turned to Jessica once more. 

“Will you come with me, Jessica?” he asked politely. 

And then an amazing thing happened. Jessica 
raised her eyes and looked directly into his. It was 
not a quick, frightened glance. It was a long, full, 
deep glance, as though to assure herself that the 
menace and fascination those eyes had held for her 




288 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


were there no longer. For a full fifteen seconds, with¬ 
out speaking, she looked into his eyes, and at the end 
of that time he had the grace to drop his own. He 
knew in that instant that, somehow, he had lost his 
power over her. 

‘‘No, I won^t go with you, Ignace,” she said in a 
low tone, but each word was clipped off short with 
decision and distinctness. “I won’t go with you ever 
again. I don’t want to see you again, ever.” 

She turned to Val. “Are you ready to come.?” she 
asked. 

“Righto!” he said. 

Without another glance at Teck, leaving him stand¬ 
ing there in the center of the room as though he were 
a piece of the furniture, they walked out. 

Once on the sidewalk they entered the flivver and 
turned once more in the direction of the still smoking 
Chamberlin. On the other side of the street Val, 
noticed Horseface sitting in a high-powered auto¬ 
mobile, watching them carefully. As they looked back 
they saw Teck standing in the doorway of the res¬ 
taurant, gazing after them. 

He followed slowly, as they did not have far to go 
to get to the crowd that stood along the sea wall in 
front of the burning ruin. Val parked the car at the 
curb, and the party got out. 

“Now where?” asked Jessica. 

“Well, we have to throw them off our trail in some 
way,” meditated Val. “Teck’ll be here in a minute. 
And there was Horseface with a big machine outside 
the restaurant. You can rest assured they’ll take 
steps to keep us in sight. I suppose the Rat’s around 
here somewhere, too—^looking us over.” 


THE CHASE 


289 


He paused for a moment, thinking rapidly. He was 
not afraid of Teck and his men, yet it would be better 
if they could get out to where the treasure was hidden 
without being followed by them. He didn’t want to 
have a fight with them while the women were there. 

‘T have it,” he announced at length. He glanced 
at the large crowd, which now numbered perhaps five 
thousand persons. “Let’s push into the crowd and lose 
ourselves. They won’t be able to keep track of us in 

there-” he pointed with a flick of his hand at the 

mass along the wall. 

“Teck’ll watch our car, expecting us to come back 
to it. Well, we won’t come back to it at all, see. We’ll 
stay in the crowd for ten or fifteen minutes, and then 
we can ooze out of it and make for the street car to 
Hampton. From Hampton we can walk over to Mount 
Monroe easily—^it can’t be very far.” 

“It isn’t,” assented Jessica. “I think you’ve hit on 

the way to do it.” 

Ten minutes later they mixed thoroughly with the 
crowd that swirled in the direction of the trolley car, 
and in another moment they were seated inside. 

“There,” said Jessica, “I think we’ve thrown them 
off now.” They glanced around them and saw nobody 
they could recognize in the crowd. There was a clang¬ 
ing of the bell, the track was cleared of the people who 
were crossing, and the car started on its way. The 
trolley turned the corner and was lost to sight. 

The Rat, who had been hidden in the crowd, turned 
and ran for Phoebus. At the automobile opposite the 
restaurant he found Horseface and Teck. 

^‘Dey just got on de car fer Hampton, he an¬ 
nounced. 



290 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

‘‘All right/' said Teck. “Let's go." 

They entered the big car. There was a sullen mut¬ 
tering of the engine, and the large, blunt nose of the 
machine was turned in the direction of Hampton,. 
Horseface pressed a button and the car plunged ahead, 
singing on its way. 


XXXVI 


IN THE SECRET CAVE 

The street car was crowded, but long before they 
got to Hampton Val had been able to catalog every 
person in it; there was no one he knew; no one, so 
far as he could determine, connected with Teck. So 
far, so good. He promised himself a little fun this 
morning, if they managed to elude Teck. 

It was the last act of the play, he told himself. The 
girl was sitting beside him—he was thrillingly con¬ 
scious of that—and they were on their way to uncover 
the treasure; it made little difference to him, actually, 
whether or not there was a treasure. He had had his 
thrill out of the chase. That had become his philos¬ 
ophy—that the joy of Life was not in the capture but 
in the chase—the chase was the important thing. He 
was not able to relinquish himself absolutely to this 
philosophy, however, for the simple reason that there 
was the slight matter of the capture of Jessica to be 
still attended to—surely his joy in that would not 
be ended with the chase. 

There are those who would say that, did he but know 
it, his great moment of fulfillment, as regards to 
Jessica, was in the chase, and he would come to realize 
that in the end; Val, however, cast that thought aside 
negligently, scornfully. To possess Jessica. . . . He 
knew of no simple chase that could compare to that. 
No . . . perhaps his philosophy was not exactly all 
291 


292 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


that it should be, either, he considered. Perhaps there 
was something wrong with a conduct of life, a method 
of thought, that could be summed up in a sentence. 
Life—he capitalized it—was bigger than that. They 
would see. . . . 

Jessica broke into his thoughts. “I’m all excited, 
all atingle,” she confessed, turning to him. He was 
recalled to mundane things with a start—he had for¬ 
gotten where he was, where he was going, in the last 
minute. He came back to life to find himself sitting 
next to the most adorable creature in all this world— 
in fact, in all —possible worlds, he decided, t^ing in 
rather a great deal of territory. 

“In a few minutes we’ll know whether it’s true or 
not,” she said. “Whether there really is any 
money-” 

“Certainly there is, Jessica,” answered Morley. 
“D’you see that spot of coast?” He pointed far off 
to the sea line. “That’s the exact point where a Span¬ 
ish galleon, loaded with gold, was sunk in the sixteenth 
century. The ship sank, but they managed to get the 
gold off. From ancient manuscripts, I have learned 
that the doubloons, the gold ornaments, the rubies and 
diamonds, hundreds of pounds of fine ivory, spices from 
Araby and scents from Cathay—all, all are buried on 
Mount Monroe. Your father had some queer idea that 
it was his own money he was burying, but he was mis¬ 
taken. He was •burying Spanish gold, romance, ad¬ 
venture, love—everything!” 

She broke in with a gay laugh, fully restored to 
herself now. 

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right,—^Val,” she tinkled. Val 
felt happy, supremely happy. The sound of his name 



29S 


IN THE SECRET CAVE 


in her voice, the way it came oiF her lips, slowly, as 
though she were loath to let it go, caressingly, hesi¬ 
tatingly ! 

“What are you going to do with all that money?” 
Val asked. 

“Mi? Oh, I don’t know; just he happy, I guess. 
Poor old dad,” she murmured, recalling him to her 
mind by some chain of thought that Val could only 
guess at. 

“Happy . . murmured Val. ‘Tf money could 
bring happiness, I guess I’d have much more than my 
share.” 

“Haven’t you?” she asked. 

He stared at her. “Not yet,” he said slowly. “Pm 
waiting for . . . something ...” 

She had no answer to this, but the tip of a little ear 
turned rosy, and he knew that she understood. He 
was satisfied. Really, you know 

^‘Hampton!” shouted the conductor. 

The party got off there. Val and Eddie looked 
around them sharply, but could discern no glimpse of 


their enemy. 

“Thrown him off,” remarked Val. ^ ^ 

“Maybe, sir,” disagreed Eddie. He was a pessimist; 
he always hoped for the worst, so that the best could 

surprise him. ,, 

Val looked at him quickly. “What do you mean? 
he asked. “Did you see anything, old crepe-hanger.'' 

Eddie shook his head. “Nothing, sir. But we 

haven’t seen the last of that bird yet. , , • n. 
As a matter of fact, they hadn’t. Far back m the 
recesses of a store that looked out upon the car line, 
Teck was stationed, his bright eyes observing every- 


294 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


thing without himself being seen. Back of the store 
stood the high-powered car that he had picked up, 
somewhere. 

At the suggestion of Jessica, the party stopped at 
a hardware dealer’^s to get a new battery for VaPs 
flashlight. He would need it in the cave, which, while 
not very deep, was low and dark. 

In a few minutes they had left Hampton behind and 
were in the open country. Val and Jessica, like two 
children, chattered all the way in their excitement. 
Jessica was now her light-hearted self, with the glow 
of happiness in her eyes, the lithe swing of youth in 
her walk; the fresh air whipped the roses into her 
cheeks as they went along, her hand in the crook of 
Val’s arm. Val did his best to keep his feet on the 
ground, but it was tough work. He felt that, given 
just a little more, he would tear his moorings asunder 
and float high over the world, like a great balloon 
that spumed such common things as good red Virginia 
soil. 

They gave the little cottage where Jessica had been 
living a wide berth and approached Mount Monroe 
by a road Val had not yet trodden. He could see the 
hill from where they were, a knobby, brush and vege¬ 
tation-covered eminence rising to a height of perhaps 
two hundred feet. 

The road they walked was very narrow, so that 
they had to go along in single file. On each side the 
underbrush hemmed them in completely. Beyond the 
brush was the forest, one of the few forests left in 
that part of the country. Once Val thought he heard 
something moving in the bushes opposite them. 

He leaped for the bushes and tore them aside, but 
could find nothing. 


IN THE SECRET CAVE 


295 


He laughed. ^‘Nerves getting jumpy again,he 
remarked. “But I guess weVe left him behind this 
time for fair.” 

“Him,” of course, referred to Teck, and the very 
allusion to the man caused a slight damper to fall 
on the party. They pushed on in silence after that 
for a few minutes. 

Finally they reached the foot of the hill. From 
where they stood it appeared to Val that the hill was 
much bigger than he had thought it from a distance. 
It was not very high, but it spread over a great deal 
of territory, and it was so heavily wooded that it 
seemed almost impenetrable. Plainly, one would have 
to know his way about, on this hill, to get anywhere. 

“From now on I’d better lead,” said Jessica, coming 
to the front. know just how to get to it.” 

They followed her in single file through a tiny foot¬ 
path that she led them to imerringly, winding away up 
the hillside, aroimd and through the trees, skirting 
great bowlders that suddenly blocked the path, and 
in one place hugging the side of the hill seventy-five 
feet above the solid earth, a little path only two feet 
wide. 

“I say,” protested Val, “this wasn’t built for a man 
of my displacement. Parts of me hang over, you 
know.” 

Jessica looked back at him, laughing. ^Well, don’t 
lose your nerve, anyway.” 

They hugged the wall until they came around the 
next curve, where the path broadened out again. Val 
and the two behind him breathed a sigh of relief. As 
for Jessica, the peril of the passage had not seemed 
to affect her in the least. She had not gone that way 
for years, but it had come back to her instantly, and 


296 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


she experienced all the old time confidence. They kept 
on their way, up around the sides of the hill, until it 
seemed as though it would not be possible to go further 
—as though they had covered every possible part of 
the hill. 

“Here we are,’^ called Jessica from around the bend 
in the road. 

They hurried around to where she was standing. It 
was steep on the side of the hill, almost at the sum¬ 
mit. On one side rose the wall of soil and vegetation. 
In front was a plateau of perhaps twenty feet. Over 
the edge of the plateau there was a sheer drop of a 
hundred and fifty feet to the rocks below, broken by 
an occasional tree that jutted out from the side of 
the rocky slope. 

“Where is it.?” asked Val. They clustered around 
her. 

“There,” she pointed to a mass of shrubbery at the 
side of the road that looked no different from the 
shrubbery all along the way. “You could never find it, 
not in a million years,” she said. 

Stepping to it, she forced the shrubbery aside, dis¬ 
closing a hole that was perhaps two feet high, stopped 
up by a large bowlder. “You’ll have to move the rock 
away.” 

It was true. So cleverly had Nature concealed the 
place that one might have camped outside of the cave 
for weeks and never noticed it; it was a fitting hiding 
place—one could never in a lifetime come upon it by 
accident. And having come upon it, it would never 
occur to one that any other human had ever been there 
before. Old Peter Pomeroy had chosen wisely—that 
could be seen at a glance. 


IN THE SECRET CAVE 


297 


‘‘All right, Eddie,” said Val. “LeCs go.” He 
motioned to the great bowlder. 

The two men attempted perfunctorily to roll the 
rock away from the entrance, but it scarcely budged. 
They pushed again, with the same result. It was plain 
that this rock could not be moved in that perfunctory 
manner—they would have to go at it in earnest. 

“Got that cold chisel, Eddie?” asked Val. 

“Here y’are, sir,” Eddie handed him the chisel. 
With this Val dug away as much dirt as possible 
from the base of the bowlder, to give it free passage.. 
It was imbedded in the soil to a depth of several 
inches. Val cleared away the soil in front. 

He took off his coat, and Eddie did likewise. 

“Now, Eddie,” he said. The two men advanced 
upon the bowlder once more. 

“Let’s do it at the same moment,” said Val, taking 
his place on the opposite side of the stone and getting 
as good a grip as possible. Eddie nodded. 

«One—two—three—Go!” said Val. Red in the face 
from the effort, their muscles bulging, the two men 
heaved. The rock moved a few inches away from the 
entrance to the cave. 

“Again,” directed Val. They moved it several inches 
more. In a few minutes they had it far enough away 
from the black entrance to the hole in the side of the 
hill to permit them to enter. 

Panting and perspiring, the men paused for a mo¬ 
ment to dry their faces and catch their breaths. 

“I’ll go in,” said Jessica, all excitement. 

“Better not,” warned Val. “Not yet, anyway. You 
can’t tell what you’ll find there—it’s many years since 
you’ve been in it.” 


298 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


‘‘Nonsense,” scoffed Jessica. “Let’s both go in.” 

“Righto!” said Val. “Where’s that flash.?” 

Eddie handed it to him, and he stooped to enter the 
cave. 

“It gets higher when you’re about five or six feet 
inside,” said Jessica, who was right behind him. “High 
enough for you to stand up.” 

Val grunted in response. All was black before him; 
he could see absolutely nothing. He brought the 
pocket flashlight to bear on the floor and side of the 
cave. 

The floor was smooth as though it had been rolled 
out with a tennis court roller. The walls were jagged, 
dripping with moisture. He stood up. The roof just 
cleared his head. A moment later Jessica was stand¬ 
ing beside him. A frightened bat, with a tremendous 
whirring of wings, flew round and round in circles, 
startling Jessica momentarily. 

“Oh!” she said, grasping Val’s arm. That steadied 
her instantly. 

“See anything?” she asked. 

“Not a thing,” he replied. “How much farther 
does this cave run back?” 

“Only a few feet, and then around a bend to the 
left,” she replied. 

They advanced, playing the gleam of light on every 
side, letting it shine in all likely places. 

“Turn here,” Jessica guided him. 

The cave now broadened out to the proportions of 
a chamber. At the level of Val’s head was a small 
natural shelf in the living rock. He gave an exclama¬ 
tion of delight when his light fell upon it. 

On the shelf was a tin box about a foot and a half 
square. 


XXXVII 


BI^OD AND GOLD 

‘‘The treasure!” exclaimed Val. 

“The treasure 1” exclaimed Jessica. 

She clapped her hands in childish glee. He reached 
up and lifted down the box, which was quite heavy. A 
rapid glance around the cave convinced him that there 
was nothing else there. This natural chamber in the 
hillside was the end of the cave. There was no need 
to stay there longer. 

With scarcely concealed excitement they turned to¬ 
ward the entrance and made their way out. They 
blinked in the sharp sunbght for a moment, scarcely 
able to see, so great was the transition from the dense 
gloom of the cave. 

“That’s it!” exclaimed Elizabeth as the box came 
to view. “I remember that box.” 

It was an ordinary tin box, such as is used to hold 
valuable papers, black, with a band of thin gold drawn 
about it, and a handle on the top. Val placed the box 
on the ground in front of the entrance to the cave 
and tried to open it. It was locked. 

“The chisel, Eddie,” he said. 

With the chisel he forced the lock quickly, the 
others gathering close over the box in their eagerness 
to get a first glimpse of its contents. He threw the 
cover up. The box was filled almost to the top with 
banknotes, in denominations of one hundred to one 
thousand. Under the banknotes were piles of stocks 
299 


300 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


and bonds. A rapid calculation on the spot showed 
them that there was nearly half a million dollars in 
money and negotiable securities in front of them. 

Rapt in their interest, the small group clustered 
around the box, lost to everything but what was before 
them. Half a million dollars! 

murmured Jessica, clasping her hands to¬ 
gether. ‘‘To think-” 

There was a movement behind them, and they heard 
a voice. So absorbed were they that they had for¬ 
gotten all else—forgotten the chance of Teck’s ap¬ 
pearance. They whirled now. 

In front of them stood Teck and his three rough¬ 
necks, the three carrying revolvers menacingly. 

“I rather think we’ll have to relieve you of all that,” 
remarked Teck pleasantly, his eyes gleaming at the 
open box, at the wealth displayed therein. 

A swift, determined glance passed between Eddie 
and his employer—it was a thing of a fraction of a 
second, but it was enough. They knew that this was 
no time to give up. 

A lightning kick of Eddie’s foot disarmed one of the 
men, and at the same moment both Val and he leaped 
for them. There was no time to use the weapons, so 
swiftly did they attack. It was a rough and tumble 
fight. 

A sudden lunge by Val, and Horseface dropped to 
the ground, knocked out clean. 

“Clean ’em up, Eddie!” he shouted. 

They were all over their opponents in an instant. 
Val was the poetry of motion in his actions, lithe as 
a mountain cat, and as terrible. Closing with his man, 
he grasped his gun-hand, the weapon being discharged 
in the air. There was a dull crack, and the gun 



BLOOD AND GOLD 


301 


dropped from his hand, the wrist hanging uselessly, 
broken. Val lifted him and threw him at Teck, who 
was now jumping at him. 

Kicking the body of the tough aside, Val leaped at 
Teck. The two great bulks met in midair and hung 
there for an instant, their big bodies straining. Eddie 
was getting the best of his opponent, forcing him back 
and down, pounding violently at him with his fists. 

Val could feel the muscles of Teck swelling under his 
arms as they strained backward and forward. This 
was no mean opponent, with his great weight and his 
terrible passion. Teck^s face was livid in his anger, 
and against the pasty skin his scar throbbed and 
glowed evilly, his mouth sending forth a stream of foul 
curses. He wrenched an arm loose and started to 
flick it upwards at VaPs head, but Val had had that 
done to him once; he was watching for him. He 
seized the arm in the nick of time, and it never landed. 

“Now, Iggy!’^ panted Val, forcing him backwards, 
landing blows on his stomach as he spoke, to each one 
of which Teck grunted in pain. “Over you goT’ 
They were now on the edge of the cleared space, over¬ 
hanging the valley below. 

Backwards he forced him, and still backwards, al¬ 
ways holding that right arm of his where it could do 
no harm. Over . • . over • . • still further ... 

A calm voice broke in on them, cold as steel, and 
emotionless. 

“That will be about all of that, Teck.” 

Everything stopped in a moment, arms suspended 
in air, muscles taut. They looked in the direction from 
where the voice came. 

A great gasp came from Teck and Jessica, Val 
stared in his astonishment. 


m2 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

It was the mysterious man he had seen last night in 
the lightning—the old man of mystery. With him 
were four policemen, with drawn revolvers. 

Jessica grew ghastly pale; she swayed on her feet, 
staring unbelievingly at the apparition. Teck could 
not draw his eyes away. It was Jessica who spoke 
first, a cry drawn from her, involuntarily, amazedly. 

^Tatherr 

Teck stared. “Peter Pomeroy!’’ he gasped, stepping 
backward as though from an apparition. It was his 
last step. 

Behind him was a rock, on the very edge of the clilF, 
over which he tumbled. The last thing they saw was 
his pale face, disfigured by the scar, disappearing 
backward down the long drop, A hoarse scream 
echoed back, there was a crashing of underbrush, and 
silence. 

The policemen jumped for the three toughs and took 
charge of them, but nobody noticed. Slowly Jessica 
was advancing to the aged man, who gazed at her, his 
face transfigured. 

“Father!’’ she breathed again. 

“Yes, it is Ij” he said. 

In an instant she was sobbing on his breast, softly. 

Val stared at Eddie and Eddie stared back just 
as wonderingly at Val. 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Val exclaimed at length. 

“So will I, sir,” replied Eddie. 

The scene between father and daughter was a touch¬ 
ingly pathetic one, and Val and Eddie discreetly busied 
themselves in diverting their attention to something 
else. They leaned over the cliff and tried to discover 
the body of Teck far below, but he had evidently rolled 
under a tree, because they could see nothing of him. 


BLOOD AND GOLD 


303 


‘‘Suppose we go down, sir,” suggested Eddie. “We 
might come across him—^he might not be dead; he 
might need assistance.” 

“Right, Eddie,” assented Val. 

Jessica and the old man, her father, were by now 
regaining coherence. “He told me you were dead, 
father,” she said. “Pve been laying flowers before 
an urn supposed to contain your ashes for over a 
year.” 

The old man smiled grimly. “I deny that I’m dead, 
Jessica,” he said. “Though I’ve been as good as dead 
all that time. It’s rather too long a yarn to spin 
here—^let it wait till we get back to the house. We’d 
better go down with these young men to see if we can 
find Ignace.” 

So they made their way down the mountainside, Val 
and Eddie in the van, the officers with their prisoners 
following next, and Jessica and her father bringing 
up the rear. It was a pale Jessica who walked the 
down trail with her father; a pale one, and a weak 
one. The shock had been great, and she was still 
feeling it. 

On a ledge near the bottom they found the body of 
Teck. Looking curiously smaller than he looked when 
he stood erect, sallow, his ugly scar a streak of lurid 
color across his face, he lay staring up at the sun. 
motionless. Only his eyes moved—splayed within his 
range of vision unceasingly. 

Val felt his heart—it was still fluttering gently, but 
it was plain that he would not last long. They 
grouped around him and eyed him not triumphantly, 
not gloatingly, but pityingly; pity that at the last he 
should be so broken and so helpless. And then, sur¬ 
prisingly, his lips moved and he spoke. He spoke in 


304 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

a hoarse whisper, but his old bravado was still there; 
the sneering timbre of his voice still rang as of old. 

‘T^ll be going now,” he was saying in his whisper, 
weak, but steady voiced, retaining his consciousness 
with the sheer power of his will. ‘T’ve played my last 
trick.” They bent over liim to catch his words. 

“Before I go I’d like to clear up a few things. Pve 
lost, but the game was worth it.” He spoke slowly, 
distinctly. The sergeant in charge of the police detail 
left the prisoners in the hands of the three subordi¬ 
nates, and took down what he said on his pad. 

“In the first place, as you know,” Teck smiled, cyn¬ 
ical even in the face of death, “Peter Pomeroy had the 
bad grace not to die. To all intents and purposes he 
did die, and an hour after his death—it was sudden— 
the news of it went out to the papers, where it was 
printed the next day. He was removed to an under¬ 
taker’s chapel, where he regained consciousness that 
evening.” 

He paused for a moment, wearied, but went on al¬ 
most at once, forcing himself on, low voiced, distinct, 
even. 

“I had him taken to my own rooms—you know them, 

Morley-” he smiled quietly. “That was when my 

great idea came to me. Although he regained con¬ 
sciousness, he had completely lost his voice and his 
memory. He remembered nothing, and the vocal 
chords were paralyzed. In some way, the news of his 
recovery did not get into the papers—that was the 
day of the great explosion in Wall Street, when so 
many lives were lost, and it crowded out small items of 
news. After that it wasn’t news any more—^I fixed 
the undertaker, and nothing was said about it. It 
wasn’t hard to place an urn in a crematory and label 



BLOOD AND GOLD 


305 


it ‘Peter Pomeroy/ To all practical purposes, Peter 
Pomeroy was dead.” 

He was silent again for an Instant. “As soon as he 
recovered sufficiently to be moved, still paralyzed 
vocally, still memory less, I entered him in an asylum 
in the Middle West—you’ll know where it is, Mr. 
Pomeroy—and told the superintendent that he was my 
brother, though he suffered from the delusion that he 
was someone else, a dead man. I paid for his keep 
there. My idea was to get hold of his money—as we 
all know, his money was never kept in banks, and I 
thought I’d have no great difficulty in locating it. 
With his daughter abroad and no other member of his 
immediate family alive, it should have been easy—^and 
it would have been if he hadn’t concealed the money so 
cleverly. As it was, Jessica returned and the money 
was still unfound. 

“Slowly—by very gradual changes—^his memory was 
beginning to come back to him, and he was able to talk 
a little, as I learned on my frequent visits there. His 
brain, I could see, was still not quite clear, and it 
was my hope that I’d be able to get the secret out of 
him—the hiding place of the money. I met with no 
luck until the last time I was there. He was inco¬ 
herent, and fragmentary, but thoughts of his money 
seemed to be running through his mind, to the ob¬ 
scurity of almost everything else. He kept saying to 
me, in answer to my questions—‘It’s in the books • . . 
Virginia!’ ” 

“ ‘The books’ didn’t mean much to me until, on the 
way back, I suddenly recollected that he had a couple 
of dozen of them in the house—-and that he had seemed 
rather attached to them. Virpnia, of course, was a 
live clew, but this is such a big place that one could 


306 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 

hunt here a lifetime without result. Probably, then, 
he had made a memorandum of the hiding place some¬ 
where in his books, intending to tell Jessica about it, if 
he hadn’t ‘died’ so suddenly. 

“When I returned I found that Jessica had sold the 
books that same day. That was the reason I was sud¬ 
denly so anxious to get the books, after disregarding 
them for so long. Luckily—for me—I never left town 
without having Jessica watched. I found out where 
she had sold the books, and also that Morley here, who 
was recognized by my man, had taken some of them 
away with him. It was easy enough to get them out 
of Morley’s house, but the old man, Masterson, had not 
been so easy earlier in the evening. I had driven down 
there in a taxi and asked the driver—a friend of mine 
whose name I won’t tell you—to wait outside. I found 
the old man alone, ready to go home, with the blinds 
pulled down. I offered to buy back the books, and he 
became suspicious, for some reason or other, and re¬ 
fused to sell until he had time to examine them at his 
leisure. He probably thought that if they were so 
valuable to me, they would be just as valuable to him. 
Anyway, I had no time to spare—I was afraid to spend 
too long a time at the job—and, after unsuccessfully 
trying to induce him to sell, I tried to take them away 
by force. The old man struggled hard, harder than 
I would have believed such an old man could fight— 
and I had to hit him. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard, 
and I only wanted to quiet him, but he was fighting 
fiercely and I could not judge the force of the blow 
very well. It smashed his head in.” 

He was silent again for a moment. It was Val who 
spoke, eagerly. 

“But how?” he asked. “With what?” 


BLOOD AND GOLD 


307 


The other smiled grimly at him. ‘‘The same way 
I did for you in the haunted house—and your friend. 
Look here.” He drew attention to his right arm* 
which nobody had noticed before, so interested were 
they in what he had to say. 

The stump of his wrist was covered by a cap of 
metal, a heavy, bulky iron cap that must have weighed 
eight or nine pounds, fitting closely on his wrist. Such 
a weapon, swung by the arm of a strong man, was 
enough to kill an opponent with one blow easily— 
enough to smash in his head. Val drew it off, and 
found that there was a spring arrangement that 
clamped the wrist tightly, holding it firm on the stump. 

“You see, I kept it in my right hand trouser pocket, 
always,” explained Teck. “All I had to do was to 
push my wrist into it—it was fixed so that it seized 
my wrist firmly and stayed on. It was my own idea,” 
he said, with a trace of modest pride. 

“Nobody ever expected anything of the sort from 
me—and all I needed was the chance for one blow. I 
usually got that, because they weren’t looking for it. 
Anyway,” he went on, a little wearied, “I killed 
Masterson—nobody else had anything to do with it. 
I’m sorry for it, but it couldn’t be helped. I was get¬ 
ting desperate in my haste; back in his asylum 
Pomeroy was recovering his memory and his voice, and 
I knew it would not be long before he was back here— 
they would not have been able to keep him, even had 
they been willing to take the chance, which I doubt. 
I may as well say that they acted in good faith there 
they believed my story.” 

Pomeroy nodded. “That’s true,” he supplemented. 
“They released me as soon as I was able to explain the 
circumstances.” 


308 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


^‘I—I think that’s about all,” he said in a lower 
tone, evidently finding difficulty in continuing. “You 
know most of the rest. I’m ready to go now. It was 
a good game, and I nearly won- 

“If you had had a chance to examine the papers in 
the tin box,” remarked old Pomeroy, “you would have 
discovered a memorandum to Jessica in which I direct 
her to pay you the sum of one hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars. I owed you that, I felt.” 

Teck’s eyes clouded. “I might—^have—^known-” 

he murmured wearily. “But I took my chances 

and-His head dropped back and his eyes closed. 

There was a silence on the little group, and they stood 
immovable for a few seconds. 

The sergeant bent down and examined the body. 
“He’s gone,” he announced. 

“I’ll take charge of these men,” he said briefly; 
“and of—this.” He motioned to the body of Ignace 
Teck. 

“We’ll go back to the cottage—you can find us there 
if you need us, sergeant,” said old Pomeroy. The 
police officer nodded. 




XXXVIII 


THE END OF THE TRAlIi 

In the cottage VaPs place in the affair was explained 
to old Peter Pomeroy, and the man who had returned 
to the world nodded with gratitude at him, charmingly 
grateful for VaPs assistance to his daughter. Pomeroy 
also explained, in brief, his own movements. He had 
been released from the asylum and had come East 
instantly, his first visit being to Virginia to see whether 
or not the money was still there. 

He came at night—that’s when his train landed him 
—and discovered that his daughter was down here, 
and Teck, and that things were happening. It was he 
whom Val had seen in the lightning, and it was he who 
had cut Val loose. It was his sibilant whisper of warn¬ 
ing Val had heard down the stairs. The young man 
had seemed to be on the friendly side, but he was un¬ 
familiar with the developments, and he did not wish to 
take the chance of disclosing himself until he knew 
exactly what was occurring down here, in his supposed 
absence. 

He wished to discover just what it was Teck was 
attempting to do—^this he discovered, of course. He 
would have disclosed himself to his daughter, but had 
309 


310 THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR 


no chance that night. Germinal, the negro, had come 
out on the road and he had accosted him, intending 
to have him call Jessica out, in secret. But Germinal 
had nearly died of fright, thinking him a ghost, and 
had made off at top speed. 

Peter Pomeroy had by now a pretty fair idea of 
what was going on; he decided that the only thing to 
do was to arrest Teck and his gang—to do it sud¬ 
denly, unexpectedly, so as to give them no chance to 
escape. That was how he happened to appear so con¬ 
veniently at the very spot where he was needed, ably 
assisted by four officers from Newport News. 

He extended a pressing invitation to Val to stay at 
the cottage with them for a few days; which invitation 
was seconded by Jessica. Not that any such invitation 
to Val needed to be pressing. 


It was several days later that Val had a conversa¬ 
tion with his man Eddie. 

“Eddie,” he said, “what do you think of marriage?” 
Eddie looked at him slowly. “I’ve heard it very 
highly spoken of, sir,” he replied. 

“I know, Eddie, but as an institution- 

“I think marriage is a very good thing—for the un¬ 
married, sir,” came back Eddie respectfully. 

“You’ll get yours some day—they always do,” de¬ 
clared Val, gazing at his man in indecision as to jusb 
how to receive his last remark. ^‘I was just tryingl;o 
tell you,” Val went on, “about Miss Pomeroy and— 

er—I was just saying—I mean that I-” 

“I congratulate you, sir,” said Eddie, calmly. “I 
hope you and Miss Pomeroy will be happy.” He dis- 




THE END OF THE TRAH. 


311 


missed the matter finally, as though it were of little 

consequence. “Your shaving water’s ready, sir-” 

“Go to the devil, you cold-blooded, hard-boiled egg I” 
Val flung at him in exasperation. 

“Yes, sir,” said Eddie, “Thank you, sir.” 




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